Keep the Oak in Sight

As they were walking along someone said to Jesus, "I will follow you no matter where you go." But Jesus replied, "Foxes have dens to live in, and birds have nests, but I, the Son of Man, have no home of my own, not even a place to lay my head." He said to another person, "Come, be my disciple." The man agreed, but he said, "Lord, first let me return home and bury my father." Jesus replied, "Let those who are spiritually dead care for their own dead. Your duty is to go and preach the coming of the Kingdom of God." Another said, "Yes, Lord, I will follow you, but first let me say good-bye to my family." But Jesus told him, "Anyone who puts a hand to the plow and then looks back is not fit for the Kingdom of God." (Luke 9:57-62, NLV).

Not long ago, I read the story of multimillionaire Don Storms. Several years ago he was a very
successful television personality who was fired when new management came into his organization. He went through an agonizing period of depression and an "I just don't care anymore" attitude. But he was able to turn himself around and become incredibly successful in an entirely new field. How did he do it? "It was a sense of purpose," he says. "Having a goal and a new dream to strive toward." It was having this goal, making a success of his new business venture that enabled Storms to turn his life around. In the article he tells the secret to his success. He wrote that he was successful “because he kept his eye on the oak tree.” He went on to explain. "When I was growing up in the country," Storm said, "we used to plow the fields. We would never look down at the ground we were plowing. We'd look at the oak tree, shoot for that and plow a straighter furrow. If you look at the adversities, oh, there's a rock, or a tree stump, or a small ravine, you'll be wandering all over the place. But if you've got an oak tree in your sight and your heading right for it, you'll get past the rocks and stumps and accomplish you goal."

That’s the principle behind Jesus’ teachings on discipleship in our Scripture this morning. When you want to get to the other side of anything, you must have a clear goal in sight. If your goal is fuzzy and you're not sure where you want to go, you'll bump into every stone and stump in your path. If, however, you have that goal in front of you, firmly planted in your mind, it will act like a magnet and draw you straight to it.

What are your life goals today? What do you have your eyes set on in your life? William Barclay writes, “It's possible to be a follower of Jesus without being a disciple; to be a camp-follower without being a soldier of the king; to be a hanger-on in some great work without pulling one's weight. Once someone was talking to a great scholar about a younger man. He said, ‘So and so tells me that he was one of your students.’ The teacher answered devastatingly, ‘He may have attended my lectures, but he was not one of my students.’ There is a world of difference between attending lectures and being a student. It is one of the supreme handicaps of the Church that in the Church there are so many distant followers of Jesus and so few real disciples.”

Put your eye on the oak tree today!