Front windshield followers

Moving can be unsettling. My wife and I have moved 14 times in 39 years.

There have been many times due to the stress and challenges of the “new thing” that we have been tempted to look back because the place of the past had become comfortable.

God knew what He was doing when He put our eyes in the front of our head, created our hands and arms to reach forward and our feet to point forward. He created us to keep moving forward!

In Luke 9:57-62 Jesus challenges three people to move forward by following Him.

The first person is challenged to give up his comfort zone. “Foxes have holes and the birds have nests but the Son of man has nowhere to lay His head!”

Home represents everything comforting (or it should) safety, security, and even a place of belonging.

To follow Jesus requires letting go of people, places and things that we have become codependent on for comfort.

Codependency is created by a deficiency in us for comfort. Life is hard and as believers we are not exempt from pain, loss, trauma etc. Jesus himself was acquainted with grief.

The issue here is our codependency on people, places and things to comfort us becomes strongholds and idols. When we make excuses for not following Jesus our idols become visible.

Jesus refuses to play tug of war with us. We have one hand holding onto our idols of comfort while trying to hold onto Jesus with the other. This causes us to keep looking back to people, places and things for comfort.

Jesus said, “Remember Lots wife.” She turned to look back at Sodom and Gomorrah as they were fleeing its destruction. Her heart was still connected to a place, a past, a place that once was a comfort.

The cure for codependency is to embrace the Comforter Himself, The Holy Spirit!

It is no coincidence that He is called thus. When we look to the Holy Spirit and the Word of God as our source for comfort and encouragement we become comforters and encouragers ourselves!

There is no rear window for followers and disciples of Jesus. Jesus calls us to let go of every idol of comfort to follow Him. He is not asking us to let go without grabbing hold of what He offers, which is eternal Hope!

Make a decision today to let go of the temporary codependent hope and embrace the eternal Hope, the Holy Spirit Himself and keep moving forward with Jesus!