Wis 9:13-18b
Phmn 9-10, 12-17
Lk 14:25-33

The Great Adventure
I am at the beginning of an adventure. It began last week with an email offering two temporary contract jobs. I am on my way to New York City to be part of a support team in a hospital as it goes from paper charting to electronic charting. Then I head to Maine to do the same in another hospital.

Each of the details to this opportunity came like clues to a treasure hunt, one at a time. For me, a woman who needs to know the big plan with details at the front end, it has been a very different kind of adventure.

Each step of the way I have asked God, “Is this from you? I sense your presence in this opportunity!!! Don’t I?” Each time as I slow down inside to hear God’s response, it was as close to yes as I have ever gotten from God. The adventure seems in some ways so out of character for me in some ways and so familiar to me in other ways.

Last week as I got ready to leave my home and family, I felt this huge tug in my heart. I will be gone for more than two weeks. My schedule will be so very different than what I am use to living. And again, I will be at a distance from those I love.

As I listened to the liturgical readings for the Sunday of September 9th, I could feel the energy of the words in my gut, especially the gospel. In the gospel Jesus tells his followers,

“If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple… In the same way, anyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple.”

I am not sure that my family sees this in the same way that I do, however, we all can feel that sense of one going and the others being left behind. Although I have a paper itinerary for my travels and my work, the biggest decision of the adventure was the internal one. This internal process was far different from whether I could do this adventure physically. This part of the decision was whether this was part of what God was calling me to…it was not about money or ability, it was about a deeper truth.

Not all of us are going to be handed an adventure such as mine today. However, everyday Christ calls to us from that place of heart, mind and soul. Everyday we make decisions which may coincide with what others want us to do/to be or may collide with what important people in our lives think we should do/be.

The ease or challenge of making any decision is guided by whom or what is the foundation of our decision making. In the reading from Wisdom, we are reminded to turn to the counsel of God. We are not asked to do this alone, without God’s grace or input.

In the gospel Jesus invites us to follow his call with all of its blessings and challenges. If our foundation is the call of Jesus, each adventure internal and external becomes an opportunity to live this adventure guided by the One to whom we have chosen to say yes and follow.