The Call.4

If you wish to follow me, you must first put aside your own desires and your self-centered ways. Sacrifice your pride and follow me. For those who desire eternal life must put aside their old way of life. All who do this for my sake will discover new life -- both here on earth as well as in heaven.

--Jesus

Christ is the way out, 

     and the way in; 

the way from slavery--conscious or unconscious, 

     into liberty; 

the way from the unhomeliness of things 

     to the home we desire 

     .....but do not know; 

the way from the stormy skirts of the Father's garments 

to the peace of his bosom. 

To picture him, we need not only endless figures, 

      but sometimes quite opposing figures: 

          he is not only the door of the sheepfold, 

          but the shepherd of the sheep; 

               he is not only the way, 

               but the leader in the way, 

                    the rock that followed, 

                    and the captain of our salvation. 

We must become as little children, 

     and Christ must be born in us; 

          we must learn of him, 

          and the one lesson he has to give is himself: 

               he does first all he wants us to do; 

               he is first all he wants us to be. 

We must not merely do as he did; 

     we must see things as he saw them, 

           regard them as he regarded them; 

we must take the will of God as the very life of our being; 

     we must neither try to get our own way,

          nor trouble ourselves as to what may be thought or said of us. 

The world must be to us as nothing.

(MacDonald, Unspoken Sermons II, Self-Denial)