And he said to him, ‘Lord, I
am ready to go with you to prison and to death!’ 34 Jesus[f] said, ‘I tell
you, Peter, the cock will not crow this day, until you have denied three times
that you know me.’ Luke 22:33
A number of years ago, a popular movie appeared based upon
the Faustian theme of an The gist of the encounter
was a bargain emerged which gave amazing musical ability in exchange for the
predictable alternative. I have been
thinking about that crossroad this week as an analogy of the place where we
live with our spiritual lives. I do not
mean to suggest that we strike a deal with the devil, but rather that our
crossroad has to do with the heartfelt desire of our heart over against the
anxiety we feel as human beings. We can often feel we are that
I perceive that as humans we frequently find ourselves at a
crossroad where on the one hand, we truly desire to be good servants of
Christ. We love the Lord and want to do
his will. We want to live our lives in
significant ways that express the best of our discipleship. Often, we enthusiastically want to put our
hand to the spiritual plow and accomplish something for Christ. On the other hand, we simultaneously discover
that the awareness of potential cost causes anxiety to arise. We hesitate and too often settle back to a
condition of quiescence. The moment passes and an opportunity fleets by.
We often find ourselves living between audacity and anxiety.
We are simultaneously audacious for Christ and timid when step up time
comes. This is very human. We experience it in many aspects of
life. How many times have an opportunity
to do something arisen and we vacillated until the opportunity passed? How often have we stepped into an opportunity
and then subsequently felt the emotion that has so often been called “buyer’s
remorse”?
These are merely mundane
examples of the very emotion that may prevent us from stepping forward into
what God has prepared for us. My prayer
is that the next time you find yourself at the crossroad of spiritual
discipleship; you will not allow the tension between audacity and anxiety to
defeat you.
