I have seen the look on many women’s faces, the pain and emptiness of wanting children but not being able to have any. Tonight, I can’t sleep, wanting to yell to the Lovely Lady, the Bride of Christ: This is true barrnenness, to have not made disciples. Just the other day, I heard another new mom say to me, “I never could have understood what it meant, until I actually had her (the new baby)…” The power of that transformation is forever and undeniable, and nothing could ever take that new mommy and daddy back to childlessness without utterly wracking their souls. They probably would rather die than be childless again.
For more than 25 years of my Christian life, I was utterly disconnected from this command of the Savior, to go and make disciples. The crazy thing is, I had no idea that I was. Strangely. it never occurred to me to ask myself if I had ever made a disciple. It wasn’t that I meant to miss the fundamental purpose for my being on the earth. Once again, STRANGELY, it just didn’t occur to me. Even looking back I can’t explain it. I don’t know that I ever thought about it, but if I did, I guess I thought that somehow that was the function of the church, to disciple people. You know, like evangelism equals inviting people to an evangelistic event, discipleship must equal inviting people to attend church. No, make that a small group.
Just as no parent in their right mind would think a school could substitute for his and her love and discipline, hoping the message on Sunday applies directly to Johnny Appleseed’s life and that he will somehow achieve sanctification and maturity without any intentional development is just plain bonkers.
This is a painful story to share, but it displays just how disconnected I was. In college, while overseas, I led a roommate to the Lord. Well, I invited her to church with me, and there she (I thought) received the Lord. I cannot remember now how clearly I ever articulated the entirety of the gospel, giving her a chance to believe and repent. I don’t remember if I explained how to be born again to her clearly enough that she could articulate it to someone else. I shared much with her, in bits and pieces. I shared scriptures with her, as things came up. I was extremely attentive to her, and I loved her with all my heart. I took her to church. I was a devoted friend, and I did the best I knew how.
Fundamentally, I also abdicated the commands of the Lord to a body who was never supposed to carry them. The little branch of a branch of a church plant with 20 or so excited young believers that represented “where I went to church.” I think she did begin to follow the Lord, but I never took responsibility for the newborn baby who’d been placed in my care. I was reactive to her, like a friend to an orphan, but I did not take her in. I did not consider the foundation that needed to be laid, oversee her development, pray her through to the other side, or even know that I should consider doing any of those things. I thought that the church did that. She was utterly unprepared to return to her spiritually dead home after our year overseas together and no longer follows the Lord at all, as far as I know. I still cry out for mercy on her behalf, that God would send someone to do what I did not.
As I said above, discipleship is like parenting, in many ways. One, there is a joy in it that will change you forever, and an empty barrenness in a life devoid of it, whether that is recognized or not. Secondly, it is the filling up of your spiritual home, the lines of your eternal generations, your inheritance forever and ever that will go on to bear fruit long after your body is dead. It is fundamentally what we are made for, and life without it is a dull form of misery. There is no thrill like discipling someone hungry for truth, nothing like speaking the faithful words of scripture and seeing confusion turn to clarity, despair to hope, brokenness to wholeness. When you disciple a woman whose never known a loving family, you may have changed the future of her children from agony to health. And her children’s children, and so on, and so on. When you rescue a young person from secular social justice and teach them the gospel, you may have just opened a gateway for thousands to come to salvation for all eternity, rather than getting fed for a few years. Discipleship is true ministry. Every other form is a shadow or facet of it.
Discipleship is what Jesus did. It cannot be done by a church or by a small group. It is person to person, requiring sacrificial love and faithful truth pouring out from the discipler and some humility and hunger from the disciple. It is utterly simple in concept, and utterly impossible in practice except by the empowerment of the Spirit. It has a bad reputation for having been done so often in the flesh. It cannot be done by a teacher from the podium. That is nice, but it is not discipleship. It is a shadow, because it requires little love from the teacher, and little humility from the student.
Just like that new mom who “didn’t know” until she did it herself, I didn’t know who I was until I began discipling. Ladies who’ve run with me know that the joy it fills me with literally makes it impossible for me to sit down while I share the Word. They may not know that I find it impossible to pray for their wounds without weeping, impossible to speak hard truths without shaking, impossible to watch them fall without aching, impossible to stop loving them. Discipleship is hard, for sure, like parenting. I have been resented, resisted, and at times, totally rejected. AND I do not regret one minute of it. Probably most of the occasion was given by my own (blundering) mistakes made along the way. Either way, I could not stop wanting any one of those ladies to win, no matter what.
I’m telling you the truth, you don’t know who you (in a good way!) are until you are discipling. It’s what we are made for. I’m so addicted that I have to get up in the middle of the night and try to disciple the cyberworld through a blog. Maybe I’ll be able to sleep now that I’ve had a heart to heart with the Beautiful Bride here on ojandsuz.com. :) So go make some disciples, teaching them everything He commanded us (Mat. 28:19). I guarantee your prayer life will go through the roof, your maturity and sanctification will accelerate, your humility will skyrocket, and your joy will be full.
Finally–I’m SO THANKFUL to those who have discipled me! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!
