The Answer

"Come and see,"  is really Jesus' answer to a question (John 1:39).  One of the disciples of John the Baptist and a would be disciple of Jesus asked Him, "Rabbi, where are you staying?"  (John 1:38)  As he and the others would soon find out, Jesus was not about staying anywhere.  He was a man whose home was the road and who was going nowhere and everywhere.  He would sleep under the roof of others, but there would never be one which He would call His own.  If they were looking for a place where they could go and come to understand the teaching of this new rabbi, it would require a sacrifice that would put them out there on the journey as well.   

For so many of us the beginning of our spiritual journey is marked by our own notions about what it means to follow Jesus.  As we look back, we realize what we thought was a life of sacrifice for Him was more about giving up small things and taking comfort in being inconvenienced for His sake.  In the beginning we knew where we were going with Him.  The only problem was that we never really listened to His answer when we asked Him where He was taking us.   For certain He was intent on taking us on the greatest adventure of our life.  For certain He desired to lead us without letting us know exactly where it was we were going.  

We thought we knew, but in all honesty, we knew nothing about where the journey was going to take us.  This going to know-not-where was a part of the faith equation which we failed to understand.  Faith was not then, nor is it now, simply an act of belief, but a decision to live in such a way that the bidding of Christ takes precedence over everything else even in the moments when the bidding makes no sense and seems to be leading to disaster.  What we know now as we have walked the road with Him for a time is not what we thought we knew in the beginning, but even with the awareness of all the uncertainty, we  choose to go to know-not-where simply because it is where He leads.