Conforming (phase 2), Three Types of Attitude in Scriptural Case Studies (step14), session 2

Okay, I've been looking ahead at this retreat, and I'm really kind of annoyed. There are steps coming for Holy Week that are assigned a single day but which contain seven scripture passages! I don't know how anyone outside of a monastery would have a hope of doing them justice. I think I may work ahead a little if the intervening steps provide the option. Since there are only three passages assigned for this step, which I started only a couple days behind, I believe I'll try to work ahead a little starting now.

As they were going along the road, a man said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go." And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head." 

To another he said, "Follow me." But he said, "Lord, let me first go and bury my father."  But he said to him, "Leave the dead to bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God." 

Another said, "I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home."  Jesus said to him, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God."  - Lk 9, 57-62

It's pretty clear how these represent the second of the three attitudes. Each of these people express their desire to follow Jesus, and he reveals to each of them how they are unwilling to put into action all that doing so really entails. We ought not judge them harshly, though, for we are often the same way. We misunderstand what it will truly mean to follow Jesus. I, for instance, am hesitating to speak the truth in love to someone because I am afraid of what it might do to our relationship.

It is all well and good to be convinced that a certain path represents God's plan for us, but unless we are willing to truly commit to that path we may be further removed from God's will than those who don't try to follow it in the first place. I believe it is less pleasing to God to disregard what we believe he wants of us than to not care what that might be in the first place.