Prone to Wander?

"The other night we sang a hymn. We sang 2 stanzas, I thought we were gonna sing the 3rd one which I don't like to sing. Because in that stanza we say something like this to the Lord,

'Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love'.

I don't feel like leaving Him. Why don't you go to your wife tonight and say 'You know sweetheart, I wanna sing something to you, "Prone to wander, wife I feel it..." and she says 'Hey!! Who's the other woman!?!" and you say, "No, no, no, it's a kind of feeling I get now and again. You know you're getting a bit old and washed up-". No, you wouldn't sing that to your wife! "Prone to wander wife I feel it-". Look, if you can sing that honestly - Prone to wander, Lord I feel it - you'd better get back to the cross! The world doesn't attract me - I don't want anything the world has, it has death in it! Everything in the world has death, everything in the kingdom has life."

~Leonard Ravenhill Be Holy in all Conversation

I've actually sung that myself. Isn't there a "Christian" artist today who's made that the chorus of a song? I never realized how contradictory that is to the Christian life! And it's challenging me. Am I prone to wander? Really am I? Or is my face fixed like flint to Him and His purposes, and His glory? If it's not then I need to examine myself again. When did I come to the place where I thought it was okay to feel like wandering? My gosh, you'd think singing that would've told me something about my heart and the sorry state of it. What does the world have that I want that would entice me to wander? I must ask myself this honestly. Do I want things of the world more than I want holiness?

I've come to determine that everything I must do to be a Christian will cost me something. Everything. If it doesn't cost me then I must examine myself. He doesn't want an empty sacrifice, he wants a dead sacrifice. Death hurts. But if I am to be holy, death is what He requires of me. Holiness will cost me every ounce of my comfort, every ounce of my spare time, my convenience, my emotions - everything that is mine must be His! And if it's not then how can I be Holy? How badly do I want it? Summed up it's this: "If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." (Matthew 16:24-25) So it's easy to say "I desire to go after Jesus" - the world smiles on that, they say "Good for you then, you'll be a good citizen if you do that." But it's saying there that if I desire to follow after Him then essentially I must also desire to lose my life. Now that's completely contradictory to anything the world says to do. It's contradictory to what most American Christians say to do. Lose my life? Lose everything? Deny myself of all the creature comforts I have? On purpose? And substitute it with what? Sure, I can deny myself but that alone won't save me. I must deny myself and take up my cross to follow Him. That requires action on my part. It requires work. The 27th verse of that same chapter in Matthew says that Lord will come with all His glory and judge each one by his works. It takes work to exchange my desires for His, then act on them.

I've heard that scripture so many times and always kinda thought "Well how sweet, Jesus wants me to follow Him and I'll find life." But I really thought about it today. I imagined what was going through the disciples heads as they heard him make that proposal.. It wasn't some sweet invitation Jesus was giving out. It was more like "I'm not going to fool you. If you want to follow me you will endure pain, suffering, and persecution like the world has never known. You must lay down every emotion and worldly desire to take up a cross of death to follow me. And be aware that regardless of what you decide mentally, I will judge you by what you do." They knew what a cross was! It was the cruelest, most torturesome way to kill someone that the world had seen yet!! And here Jesus is inviting them to take it up.. I've got to wonder what they were thinking.. It makes me wonder why I think I can get away with so little when He required absolutely everything of them. They'd already given up homes, jobs, families, security and they're wandering around the middle east and Jesus tells them there's more? If anyone had reason to be "prone to wander" they did! But they didn't. They clung tighter to the truth they knew. And He expects no less from me. He deserves no less from me. God save me from my depraved way of thinking.