The three guys in this picture above are homeless. Not in any sense of the picture you might automatically associate with the person who needs help on the street in your city. Nor am I paralleling those homeless to the one I am about to describe. We are just three guys who are being obedient to God in starting a church here in Orlando, and in the process find ourselves without a home. All of us are currently living in homes not our own, staying with friends and family in our transitions. We are “wandering on a journey” you might say. Our houses have not sold, we are trying to raise support, some of us need knew jobs in Orlando, yet all of us find ourselves walking through an unknown period (desert) with a God who is… our pillar of smoke by day, and fire by night.

A few years back I discovered something that changed much of the foundation for how I understood the phrase “following Jesus”. I had often heard things taught and preached to me like “experience this full life found in Christ” “come to Jesus and he will take away all your pain” “there is never more joy found in life than in following Jesus” “God will protect you and give you all you need”. (stick with me on this)

Are these statement true? Absolutely.

Yet, there is another side of the story that was scarcely ever told. These phrases although true can often leave a person thinking; “once I say this prayer everything will be fixed” “God will take care of it”. But what happens when it just gets more difficult? What happens when that job doesn’t work out? What happens when the wandering seems to continue? What happens when it seems as if God isn’t listening?

I’ve discovered it leaves people with this semi-false message, often discouraging them and helping position them in a place to give up.

Jesus painted a different picture to his followers. He seemed to spend more time telling his followers the other side of the story. On many occasions on his way to Jerusalem in his final week he tried to teach his followers a very important lesson.

Luke 9:57-62
As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.”
Jesus replied, “Foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”
He said to another man, “Follow me.”
But he replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”
Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”
Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say good-by to my family.”
Jesus replied, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”

Jesus’ message to those who would follow him, looked a lot different than most understand. Following Jesus for most of his disciples would lead to a life of persecution, isolation, and even death. Not quite the fuzzy “come to Jesus and all we be made well” message of following Jesus most hear.

Now for those of you wondering where this is going…

Does God provide? I have many amazing stories to proclaim and support that.

Does God bring protection? In ways that take most of us years to look back and understand.

Does God answer prayer? Always, we often forget He is writing the story, not us.

Does God bring this “full life”? Sure. And it’s found in ways we least expect it.

The understanding that I have begun to find is that following Jesus strips us of every comfort and expectation we might presuppose “following” Jesus means. Its leaves us living a life where we often feel as if we have lost it. It’s unknown, uneasy, it’s difficult. Travel the world and see the cost to following Jesus. See through their eyes the idea of being excommunicated from a village, or hiding in cellars because the “fullness of life” they have chosen to follow has a greater cost than most could imagine.

They understand what it means to “put your hands to the plow and don’t look back”.

Yet, ironically we find that it’s in that “sense of a lost life” “wandering through deserts” that we find the life God originally designed. The life that he had for us all along. The one we might just be to comfortable and distracted to find if it was any other way.

For us three and the other followers on this journey, it’s not about where the roof over our head is coming from right now, and it’s not so much about when the light at the tunnel will shine brightest. For the life we have found is one in which each day we get to wake and remember Jesus’ words:

Luke 9:1-6
When Jesus had called the Twelve together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. He told them: “Take nothing for the journey—no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra shirt. Whatever house you enter, stay there until you leave that town. If people do not welcome you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave their town, as a testimony against them.” So they set out and went from village to village, proclaiming the good news and healing people everywhere.

This was the message to those early followers, the one most never understand. In following Jesus, people will deny you, people will criticize you, and people in some countries people will want to kill you. Still want to follow?

But… (isn’t always great to hear that small word)

Matthew 28:20 “surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Following Jesus with no food, no extra shirt, no home, not enough money cannot be comprehended for some, but for others it can be no other way. For we have found that the best life is not in one built around ourselves and our comforts, but one spent trusting God for absolutely everything. A life where we are invited and sent to play our part in God’s story, sharing this good news and helping heal people along the way. A life where we come to realize that it’s not about us. That true joy in life comes not from our comfort but in helping comfort others. To reach out and help lift up those hurting, those lost, and those wandering with no pillar or fire to guide them.

Would we each like our own home?
Yes.
Would we like for support money and jobs to become available?
Absolutely.
Would we give up the desert where we get to experience God coming down around the Mountain to speak to us?
No way.

This is why we follow.
This is why we participate.
This is the “full” life we find in Jesus.

If this is how we find it, then homeless is where we will be.