“After this he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax booth. And he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ And leaving everything, he rose and followed him. Luke 5:27-28.
What was it about Jesus that caused Levi to immediately leave everything he had worked for and follow him? I asked myself that question as I read this passage this morning. Jesus is calling my husband and me to do some pretty radical things. Most of the time I am excited about his calling, but lately I find myself faltering. What is this obedience going to cost me? Financial security, relationships, a sense of home–things that have taken years to build. I am no longer young. My roots have grown deep in the soil of the Northwest. I can’t imagine looking out my bedroom window and not seeing Puget Sound, or missing the laughter of my neice and nephew as they play with my son in the backyard.
Levi must have had all these things, yet he left them without hesitation. Why? I think it is because he was looking at Jesus. There was the Savior, right in front of him, eyes filled with compassion, arms held out in love. “Follow me, Levi. I choose you.”
“Me, Lord? You choose me? But I’m a tax-collector, a sinner. Why would you want me?”
“I hear the cry of your heart. I know you want something different. I know you love me, and I am captivated by you. Come away with me now.”
That was what Levi saw.
Lord, help me keep my eyes on you and nothing else. Let me behold your beauty, experience your goodness. Let the awesomeness of your love chase all other thoughts from my mind. It is only in you that I will find the fulfillment of my deepest desires. All other things, good though they may be, are not to be compared to the riches of knowing you. I hear your call, and I will follow you.
Wonderful,
Auntie Pam I am not only impressed, but inspired by the foward motion of you and uncle Bob’s hearts. I can see such a change in the way both of you percieve and pursue the Lord and the circumstances He has allowed you to experience. From the 7 fathers and the death of you mother, through the MANY trials of parenthood, and the pain of new growth, I see you standing through the fire, standing on the word, yes Jesus himself. Knowing he is faithful, knowing he holds the master plan. And the unity he is bringing within your marriage and family is truly a gift and a beautiful blessing to me! I have been reading Hind’s feet on High places (once again) and I am currently on the chapter called “In the mist” and I feel like it was on purpose the I would be reading that today, even just for your benifit: “she began to realize that, cowardly though she was, there was something in her which responded with a surge of excitment to the tests and difficulties of the way, better than to easier and duller circumstances… ‘Did you really think that I would let you stray from the right path to the High places without doing anything to warn you or to prevent it?’ asked the shepherd quietly…. ‘Would you be willing to trust me, even if everything in the wide world seemed to say that I was deceiving you–indeed that I had deceived you all along? “Why yes, I’m sure I would,” she replied, “because one thing I know to be true, it is impossible that you should tell a lie…I must love you as long as I continue to exist. I cannot live without loving you.”
“to know you is to love you, and to love you is to obey.”
~amen
So we go.