Here is what I know I'll miss when I'm on the Race: Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, the Fourth of July, barbeques, and gatherings just for the sake of seeing friends, and the stories that are eventually told and the tears that are eventually forced out because of the laughter and the brownies that are eventually baked; I'll miss chicken fingers … Lord knows that I will miss chicken fingers, and sweet tea, especially together, and Dr Pepper, like, huge Dr Peppers, the amount that make your doctor cringe if she thought you were drinking it over the course of a week, nonetheless in that 90-minute movie; movies – The Dark Knight Rises comes out next summer for goodness' sake, all-new seasons of Breaking Bad, Dexter, 30 Rock andModern Family. I'll miss my family.
I'll miss Thanksgiving and Christmas and Easter with them, and my dad's birthday in October, my brother Jonathan's birthday in December, my brothers Ryan and Scott have birthdays in January, my stepdad Ken's birthday in February, though normally he's too humble to have much of a celebration, my birthday in May will be without them, and I won't even try to name all the other May birthdays we have, but I'll miss my sister Amanda's birthday and my mom's birthday, which are also that month. And Mother's day. She's going to kill me for missing that one. And then there's my Nana's 80th birthday in July.
More importantly, I'll miss all of them.
But what will I miss if I don't go on the Race?
I think this kind of question is on the heart of most people when they are presented with an opportunity to follow Jesus: What will I miss if I choose to follow Him? What must I give up? What must I surrender?
As Christians, we sometimes shy away from this question. Jesus never does. In Luke 9, Jesus encounters three men who have the opportunity to follow him. The first tells Jesus he will follow Him wherever He goes, but Jesus says that He doesn't even know where He'll be sleeping that night. Then Jesus asks another to follow him, but he wants to bury his father first. Jesus tells him to let the dead bury their own dead, but for the living to proclaim the kingdom of God. The third says that he will follow Christ, but he must first say farewell to those at home. Jesus tells him: "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God."
The title of that section is "The Cost of Following Jesus."
The cost of following Jesus is everything.
But that's only the beginning of the story. God begins by asking us to trust in Him, to trust that He has something better. Jesus says to follow Him because He does have something better. Because honestly, what could you or I ever give God? He is the Creator – he doesn't need any of us. Yet He wants to love. He wants to serve. And He came to this world to show you that – to wash your feet and die on a cross for you.
And love requires trust. When Jesus says to free yourself from everything, even from yourself, it's because all those things were going to destroy you anyway. He allows you to give instead of receive, and to experience the joy that goes along with living a life that isn't based on you, but that is based on something better.
Jesus says in Matthew, "For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it."
And later, in Luke, He says, "There is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times more in this time, and in the age to come, eternal life."
Surrender and serve, and God will give you more than you could ever imagine starting right now and stretching through an unimaginable eternity.
That's what I know I won't miss.
