Dust In My Eyes

 

                                                                                                                                 March 23, 2023

Twenty-five hours ago thirteen people stepped into a calling to leave the comfort of our daily lives and fulfill Matthew 28:19 in a small coastal town in Ecuador.  Our desire was to step into the great unknown and use the gifts the Spirit has placed in us in order that He might work through us.  That’s ultimately what Matthew 28:18-19 is calling us to.  That passage is calling us to show the world why we follow Christ.  To demonstrate His redemptive story in such a manner that would draw the hearts of others into the very relationship that has transformed our own. 

 

I heard someone express discipleship this week in terms of what it looked like to follow a rabbi in Jesus’ day.  It was the idea that you would follow a rabbi so closely that the dust from their sandals would cover you to the point that their dust became your dust.  But the only way for that form of discipleship to be real is proximity.  Proximity that requires intimacy.  You can’t be that close to someone without them, and everyone else, noticing.  Yet recognize that is not just a season in one’s life, that is one’s life.  You don’t follow closely one day and then from a distance the next.  To be known as His disciple means I keep His dust on me each day, each hour, each minute.  I don’t leave His presence for my own desires, my own dreams, or my own agenda.

 

See Matthew 28:18-19 seals this idea with the call of baptism.  See baptism signifies my life in 

Christ as one that is sealed.  Meaning that I’m buried with Him in the likeness of His death, and I am raised to “walk” in the newness of His life.  When I walk in the newness of His life, that life never loses its shine.  It never fades.  I must recognize that I’m walking in the newness of His life, not mine.  My life has nothing to offer the world.  For my life to truly matter means I’m walking so closely with my rabbi that people don’t see my life, they see His.    I don’t follow Jesus because it makes my life better.  I follow Jesus because it makes my life matter.

 

I’m not approaching this week in Ecuador asking what I get out of it.  I’m not even truly looking for personal fulfillment during our time here.  I’ve traveled the world from Belarus, Zimbabwe, Serbia, South Africa, China, Thailand, Haiti, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Canada, Honduras and the Caribbean Islands.  The Lord has blessed me with the great privilege of experiencing His church on a global scale.  I’m walking into this moment looking to get dusty.  I want to find where Jesus is at work, and I want to join Him.  I want a conscience experience with the Rabbi I follow.   I want someone to see the evidence of His grace in my life that points them to the Rabbi who’s working through me.  I want someone to get dirty because of the dust on me.  I want someone to find the waters of baptism because they recognized how dirty they are from a broken and fallen world.  I want to witness what happens when someone encounters the grace demonstrated by the Rabbi’s blood washing over them.  Rabbi lead… I will follow.  Let me get dust in my eyes.