When we follow Jesus, we must choose to leave some things behind. Read Luke 5:10-11. We were about to take our first-ever family vacation with all five kids. When your youngest child was born 18 years after the oldest was born, it is hard to get all five kids going in the same direction in the same week. Venus was 11, and I felt she was old enough to pack her own suitcase. She was given instructions and a suitcase. Hours later, she brought down her suitcase and a large duffle bag. The suitcase was in good order. I opened the duffle bag to find about forty stuffed animals. There would be limited room in the trunk for luggage, snacks, and beach gear. I dumped out all the stuffed animals on the living room floor and said, “You can take six, and you have to leave the rest behind.” Luke described the calling of the first disciples when Jesus told Simon Peter to put the net into the deep water. After a night of catching no fish at all, Peter reluctantly obeyed Jesus. The catch was so large that Peter needed help bringing the haul to shore. Jesus then invited Peter, Andrew, James, and John to become his disciples. Luke wrote, “So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything, and followed him.” They left everything. They didn’t even get to keep six stuffed animals. By the way, what was everything? They left their vocations. They left their families. They left their hopes and dreams. They were given the new vocation of making disciples instead of catching fish. They would become a family of disciples with Jesus as their leader. They would have new hopes and dreams far bigger than they had before. Even today, when we choose to follow Jesus, we must leave some things behind. We must leave behind worldly ideas and exchange them for Godly values. We must be faithful to God with every decision we make, even in a work environment that does not value the ways of Jesus. We must sometimes leave behind relationships that tempt us into self-destructive behaviors in order to build new relationships with people within the family of faith. When we make the decision to follow Jesus, we leave behind whatever Jesus requires us to leave behind. Hebrews 12:1 says, “Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” Leaving behind what we don’t need helps us to take what we do need. Examine what is in your suitcase and your duffle bag and discern what you need and what you can leave behind.

Prayer: Jesus, thank you for inviting us to follow you. Like Simon Peter, help us to leave behind anything and everything we don’t need on this journey of faith. Help us to embrace all that you have for us. Amen.