Discipleship

Posted by Oklahoma kons on Saturday, January 10, 2009 9:59:18 PM

What does it mean to be a disciple of Christ? When I say those words, I am not entirely sure. SO I look them up: Disciple: a follower or learner of a mentor or other teacher. A student of Jesus. A means of self-identification for those who seek to learn from Christianity. Taken from the Greek "Manthetes", meaning a learner or pupil. COming to English by way of the Latin "discipulus". NOT to be confused with the term apostle, meaning "one who is sent" or "messenger". While a disciple is one who learns from a teacher, a student, an apostle is sent to deliver those teachings to others. That sounds like me, I guess. I guess that I could argue that my classification MUST be as disciple on the basis of my studies/Masters program alone. But that isn't satisfying. I feel as though there MUST be more to it than just studying. It seems to me that discipleship has attached to it an emotion or internal drive to bring oneself closer to understanding the nature of the divine. A student of Jesus should be more than someone who tries to understand his message; a disciple desires intensely to internalize that message and to live it out. In the words of Paul to the Corinthians, "anyone united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him" (6:17), and "let each of you lead the life that the Lord has assigned, to which God called you" (7:17). "For whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God" (10:31) and "Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ" (11:1). We are to "pursue love and strive for spiritual gifts" (14:1); "Let all things be done for building up" (14:26) I am not altogether certain that all of these passages are relevant. Really I am just trying to learn--the truth is that I feel close and yet distant to God, as though God is a familiar stranger in many respects, and that is a far from comforting place for me. On the country road that is my faith journey, he seems a "swinging speck in the distance" rather than "close enough that I can hear his singing" or "see the lines on His face" (Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz). Is it that I am not looking hard enough? Perhaps I just don't recognize God on the road. Emotionally, I think to myself: God is in the dandelions along the pathway, the sweet, pungent scent of nature hanging in the autumn breeze, in the whirring of insects and the throaty coughs of bullfrogs. God is everywhere present, an invisible visible, hovering over my thoughts as the quivering leaves that swiftly shade from green, to yellow, to deep, passionate red and cling desperately to the treeboughs above me. WHy is it that I lose that image so quickly that it is often long passed by before I notice its departure? I turn my eyes away from the fragile leaves of faith which cling to me, and before I know it I am knee-deep in snow. My leaves have browned and mulched beneath an icy blanket and the work required to bring it back to life once more is often daunting. I want to be a disciple, an evergreen tree erected brightly in the rich redwood forests of home. I want my leaves to be ever-present, new ones emerging as the old fall away. How do I do it?