Discipleship: Living Intentionally, by Casey Ferguson

We should always strive to live our lives with intentionality; every move we make, every breath we breathe in, should be done with an underlying sense of purpose and direction.

Having spent the better part of five years enrolled in a university, and being involved with Chi Alpha leadership for the past four, I’ve held plenty of conversations with students about majors and ultimate goals in life, and probably one out of three I’ve talked to have confessed that their struggling to find direction. A lot of undeclared majors, and just as many declared who are pursuing degrees that don’t line up with their passions in life.

Our society seems to have an infinite number of prerequisites for life, a great many of them unspoken or at least not elaborated upon.

Upon graduating high school there’s a push towards the university, or some other form of secondary education, no matter what the individual goals and dreams of the graduate. There are students taking classes they simply do not care about, sometimes picking majors they’ll never be motivated toward, all because they feel the pressure towards college without the purpose of calling.

In Matthew chapter 4 we see a snapshot of Jesus calling his first disciples to follow after him. There are two almost parallel accounts of Jesus picking out his disciples. In each, Jesus is going someplace, heading in a specific direction. He sees people doing something and he tells them to follow him (in the second this can be inferred). And they follow. Surprising? Maybe. When read in light of our culture the fact the disciples immediately dropped what they were doing and followed Jesus when he asked may seem unusual. We don’t understand this behavior, I don’t think. But I think it’s possible to draw something significant out of these accounts.

¹⁸ As He was walking along the Sea of Galilee, He saw two brothers, Simon, who was called Peter, and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the sea, since they were fishermen. ¹⁹ “Follow Me,” He told them, “and I will make you fish for people!” ²⁰ Immediately they left their nets and followed Him.

²¹ Going on from there, He saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee, and his brother John. They were in a boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets, and He called them. ²² Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed Him.

The common element here, in both Jesus’ action and the disciples’, is that of intentionality. Jesus called out to the disciples and gave them specific instructions: “follow me.” In doing this he was outlining a goal for them: “be like me.” At least, this is what they would have taken him to mean read in the context of 1st century Jewish culture. The fact they were fishing tells us that at some point a rabbi told each of them that they could not be like him (each respective rabbi, that is). They were learning a vocation, most likely their second choice in the area of ultimate lifelong goals. When Jesus told them he believed they could be like him, he was redeeming their first choice. And when they threw down their nets at this very word, they did so intentionally. They did so with the intention of becoming like him.

Here is my challenge to each of you reading this: Answer this question: In living your life, what is your intention? What are you working toward, specifically? What are your goals? Better put, what is your goal? To be like Jesus, every day with every breath and with every step? You’re going somewhere in life, and if you haven’t marked your course it means someone will do it for you. Find your direction, or else you’ll completely miss out on life.