I've mentioned before that T. M. Moore sends out a daily email devotional called Crossfigell ("cross vigil") in which he quotes a Celtic saint and a related passage of Scripture followed by his own rich meditation on both. I'd encourage you to sign up to receive this free daily devotional at T. M.'s website My Paruchia.
I thought today's devotional "Serious About the Gospel?" was a great sample to share with you:
His mother in anguish begged him not to leave her. But he said, "Hast thou not heard, 'He that loveth father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me'?" He begged his mother, who placed herself in his way and held the door, to let him go. Weeping and stretched upon the floor, she said she would not permit it. Then he stepped across the threshold and asked his mother not to give way to her grief; she would never see him again in this life, but wherever the way of salvation led him, he would go.
- Jonas on Columbanus, departing for Bangor, Irish, 7th century
"Whoever loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for My sake will find it."
- Matthew 10.37-39
For most of us it never comes to this. We're not forced to make the choice between pleasing our parents or wives or children rather than following the Lord's leading in some particular direction. Columbanus literally stepped over his mother to follow the Lord's call to take up the work of the Gospel. In most cases, I suspect, our loved ones are happy, and maybe even proud, for us to engage in our ministry activities. Let us give thanks to God for this and rejoice in His gracious provision. Our deterrents are rather more subtle. But they are just as determined as Columbanus' mother to prevent us from being serious about the Gospel. We love our sleep rather than more time in prayer and meditation. We love our friends too much to risk losing them over the Gospel. We love our comfort, our diversions, our prosperity and ease, and the security of our jobs, and rather than risk any of these, we reserve our Gospel activities for "church" times and place, and we let our spiritual disciplines languish. We're so busy looking for life that we're actually in danger of losing it. The cross awaits us daily, stretched out across the threshold of our door. Many of us give it a pat as we go, like the members of a football team as they leave their locker room for the playing field pat a good luck mantra posted overhead. Others of us step over it, thinking nothing of leaving the cross at home, where, we suppose, it belongs. Yet the cross beckons us to take it up and bear it throughout the day, in every situation, at every opportunity, whatever the cost. When the neighborhoods, schools, workplaces, markets, and other public spaces of this land begin to be filled with cross-bearing believers, then we'll see the kind of revival that followed wherever men like Columbanus journeyed. Let us each reflect on the extent to which we are truly serious about the Gospel and the calling of the Lord.
-- T. M. Moore
