Matthew 8:20
Jesus answered him, "Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head.
I got an email from a listener a few weeks ago. She had recently lost her mom to cancer and she told me she was very angry at God. She said that when she hears me talk about Maddy, my daughter who died last year, I don't sound angry at God about it. She wanted to know how I dealt with the anger. I was honest with her and said that I was, heck sometimes I still am, angry at God. But it's not because he took my daughter away from me. I'm angry because the world is just so unfair. Maddy had a hard 22 years battling Cystic Fibrosis. I had a hard 22 years watching my daughter struggle for life. I have a lot of people ask me how I have kept my faith through that. How I am still faithful as my son Ethan fights the same disease that took his sister from us. Because God didn't promise us easy. As a matter of fact he told us following him would be hard! I simply have to wake up each day and choose hard.
In today's reading we see a Scribe promise to follow Jesus wherever he goes. Jesus' answer may seem a little weird at face value but what we need to remember is that Jesus knew this scribe's heart. The scribe wanted to follow Jesus because he wanted to be prosperous. The Jews thought the Messiah would be a king of worldly standards. Jesus is basically telling the scribe "Look dude, we are roughing it here. I sleep wherever I end up that day. It's often in the dirt, not in some palace of the King of the Jews". Jesus gave us the example of walking a hard road. Are we going to be the scribe who just wants earthly recognition and prosperity? Or are we going to be a Jesus follower and seek the hard road?
