My intention, prayers, and hopes for this blog are to provide a forum where Christians can talk about issues of faith and/or real problems they face, identifying resources they use/draw upon to help them overcome these problems or deal with issues. To facilitate this interchange, I will attempt to post excerpts of devotional writings or passages from Scripture on a regular basis and then comment on them. I will then ask interested readers to do likewise, sharing their experiences and knowledge so that we might “watch over each other in love,” as John Wesley put it. My first excerpt comes from George MacDonald:

“But I do not know how to awake and arise!”

I will tell you. Get up, and do something the Master tells you; so make yourself his disciple at once. Instead of asking yourself whether you believe or not, ask yourself whether you have this day done one thing because he said, Do it, or once abstained because he said, Do not do it.

Oh fools and slow of heart, if you think of nothing but Christ, and do not set yourselves to do his words! You but build your houses on the sand

—From Creation in Christ by George MacDonald

As I read this passage from MacDonald this morning I was struck by its sense of urgency. In addition to its urgency, MacDonald emphasizes DOING (or abstaining from) something and doing (or abstaining from) it NOW. Today. No procrastination here, no making excuses; just DO it, baby! He definitely places a premium on the immediacy of discipleship and on DOING.

As I apply this to my own discipleship, I wonder how often I simply talk about something but do not bother to ACT. For example, I sometime ignore my daily Bible reading, thereby denying myself from being fed on the Word. Likewise with daily and continuous prayer. Every time I refuse to engage, I am diminished as a man and a Christian. How long will I continue to pursue this delusion of self-sufficiency? How long will I continue to build my foundation on sand?

Most of the great devotional masters have also been confronted by this problem. To a person they urge us to pray something, even if it is perfunctory, or to read psalms or other passage from Scripture until the darkness passes. They do not cave in; they DO something and they are fighters. I must learn to do likewise.

It also struck me that this would be a splendid opportunity to invite interested readers to offer their own reflections about what sense of urgency they have, if any, about their own discipleship in light of what MacDonald writes above. Again, my intention is to provide a forum where Christians can talk about real problems they face and what resources they use/draw upon to help them overcome these problems.

So let’s start. Is your discipleship marked by immediacy and action? If not, how do you overcome or what do you need to do to make it more immediate? Are your solutions biblical? Do you draw on the work of the great masters of faith? Tell us your story so that we might begin to “watch over each other in love.”