“God loves you and has a difficult plan for your life.”
Mark Galli – Jesus Mean and Wild

I like this quote.  It sums up a way of looking at the Christian life that I’ve believed in for some time now.  God’s love for us is amazing, but if we submit to that love and delve into it with our lives–it comes with a call.  And when God calls he calls us to do things that seem impossible.  Look at the biblical accounts.

Show me one biblical figure who interacted with the living God and were called to an easy task.  Show me one example of someone whose experience was not life-altering.  Show me one person in the Hebrews "faith" chapter who didn’t approach their call with fear and trembling at some point…  I think that’s what faith is about.  It’s about being tested, stretched, and finding all your "eggs in one basket"–having your every reliance be put upon Him.  It’s finding Christ to be the only reality.  He’s the only One who can fulfill these calls anyway–and that’s the whole point.  To bring GLORY to Himself. 

Instead of comfortable positions on couches, we see the biblical figures in very uncomfortable situations.  We see some hardcore non-conformists being thrown into fire pits, we see a shoddy orator commanding a powerful "emperor" to hand over his multi-million dollar workforce, we see a contractor rebuilding his ancestral "fortress" in the face of a hostile ruling regime, we see a group of rag-tag men asked to leave their professions and families in order to follow a "controversial" religious guru.  There’s nothing easy about these life tasks.  Check your security at the door.  It’s a difficult plan, but it’s a worthy one.  It’s true discipleship. 

Here’s the way Martin Luther imagines that God sees discipleship:

Discipleship is not limited to what you can comprehend–it must transcend all comprehension.  Plunge into the deep waters beyond your own comprehension, and I will help you to comprehend even as I do.  Bewilderment is the true comprehension.  Not to know where you are going is the true knowledge.  My comprehension transcends yours.  Thus Abraham went forth from his father and not knowing whither he went.  He trusted himself to my knowledge, and cared not for his own, and thus he took the right road and came to his journey’s end.  Behold, that is the way of the cross.  You cannot find it yourself, so you must let me lead you as though you were a blind man.  Wherefore it is not you, no man, no living creature, but I myself, who instruct you by my word and Spirit in the way you should go.  Not the work which you choose, not the suffering you devise, but the road which is clean contrary to all that you must choose or contrive or desire–that is the road you must take.  To that I call you and in that you must be my disciple.  If you do that, there is the acceptable time and there your master is come.