“Do You Also Want to Leave”
admin April 12th, 2008
The Challenge
Have you ever been in a situation where you just wanted out? When it was obvious that whatever you ended up signing up for is just more than what you wanted?
Today’s gospel is the end of Christ’s “Bread of Life” Discourse (John 6:60-69). He makes it painfully clear to his disciples the depths of his expectations.
And many chose to leave and “returned to their former way of life.”
So, he asks Peter and the other Eleven – “do you also want to leave?”
It was a challenge to these twelve men – it’s a challenge to us today. Do we want to leave?
Those Who Have Left
We continually hear about those have decided to leave – those who have found the path of Christ too hard to follow.
And, quite frankly, I don’t understand it.
It’s hard to live life without Christ – I’ve tried it. No matter the circumstances, it’s easy to handle the worst of them when you know you are walking with Christ – I’ve tried that.
Yet, I know many who have turned away – some who are very close to me. They are all good and decent people but somewhere along the way they decided that they couldn’t handle Christ’s challenge to them – to truly love him, bear his Cross and walk his path.
And, quite frankly, I feel sorry for them.
Do Not Leave!
Christ wants us to stay with him. He does not want to lose us. But, God gives us the freedom to choose Christ or to choose man - it is up to us to decide who we shall follow.
Christ asks each of us every day – “do we also want to leave?” And, each day that we stay is another day when we grow closer to him.
Sometimes, it’s hard to walk with Christ and do God’s will. But, we cannot give up the fight. We may fail on a daily basis, but we cannot give in to defeat. We must struggle each and every day to bring ourselves, our family, our friends, our colleagues closer to Christ.
We cannot leave Christ’s side. He has our back in a way that no one else can. And we must work to ensure our loved ones do not leave his side either – because Christ has their back as well, even if they are trying to leave him.
“Do you also want to leave?” Let our answer be a resounding “NO!”
I just wandered over from Catholic Dads. Nice blog you got here; welcome to my blogroll!
BTW, how do you get the CWN headlines in your sidebar?
Paul, thanks for wandering over.
StBlogs uses Wordpress, which has a sidebar widget that allows you to access a RSS feed. I chose CWN. I don’t know if Blogspot has this functionality.
Have a great week,
Steve