OPINION —
There are few things more frustrating than your GPS telling you to turn somewhere that makes absolutely no sense. You’re driving along, convinced you know where you’re going, and suddenly the voice says, “Turn right.” You look at the road and think, “There’s no way that’s correct.” Maybe it wants you to leave the highway, take a back road or head in a direction that feels completely wrong.
In that moment, you have a choice. You can trust the directions, or you can trust yourself. Now, we all know GPS can get it wrong, but the principle still works. You don’t really know whether you trust the directions until they take you somewhere you weren’t expecting.
Faith can feel a lot like that.
It’s easy to say we trust God when the road is straight, the plan makes sense and life is moving in the direction we hoped. It’s much harder when following Him means letting go of something we value, stepping into something we don’t understand or surrendering something we’re afraid to lose.
That tension shows up clearly in Mark 10. A wealthy man comes running to Jesus and asks, “Good Teacher, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?” By all appearances, he’s sincere. He’s respectful. He wants the right thing, and he even tells Jesus that he has tried to live faithfully. Then Jesus touches the one area of his life he doesn’t want touched. “Sell whatever you have and give to the poor… and come, take up the cross and follow Me.”
Scripture tells us the man became sad and walked away because he had great possessions. The problem wasn’t simply that he had money. The problem was that his possessions had become something he couldn’t surrender. He wanted Jesus, but not enough to let go of what stood between them.
That’s a hard truth to sit with because following Jesus requires more than simply wanting Jesus. A lot of people admire Him. We admire His compassion, His courage, His teaching and His willingness to stand against hypocrisy. But Jesus never called people merely to admire Him. He said, “Follow Me.” And sometimes following Him means letting go.
That’s where another story in Scripture helps us understand what real trust looks like. In Genesis 22, God tells Abraham to take Isaac, the son he had waited years to receive, and go to the land of Moriah. Isaac wasn’t just Abraham’s son. He was the son of promise. God had said that through Isaac, Abraham’s family would become a great nation.
Yet now, Abraham was being asked to trust God with the very promise God had given him. That had to be confusing. How could God fulfill His promise through Isaac if Abraham was being asked to surrender Isaac? Hebrews gives us a glimpse into Abraham’s faith. It says Abraham reasoned that God was able to raise Isaac even from the dead. In other words, Abraham didn’t understand what God was doing, but he trusted the character of the God who had called him.
That may be one of the clearest pictures of faith in the Bible. Faith isn’t pretending we have no questions, and it isn’t having every detail explained before we obey. Faith is trusting God enough to keep walking even when the road doesn’t make sense.
Of course, God stopped Abraham. A ram was provided as a substitute, and Isaac was spared. But the story points forward to something even greater. Centuries later, another Father would give His Son. This time there would be no substitute waiting nearby. God would give Jesus for us. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.”
That changes the way we think about surrender. God never asks us to trust Him from a distance or asks us to give while remaining unwilling to give Himself. He went first. He gave His Son and everything necessary to bring us back to Him. So, when Jesus says, “Follow Me,” He isn’t asking us to walk a road He was unwilling to walk Himself.
Maybe that’s where some of us are today. We’re standing at a crossroads, and God’s direction doesn’t make sense. We’re holding tightly to something we’re afraid to release. We want Jesus, but we’re struggling with the cost of following Him.
The rich man walked away because what he had felt too valuable to surrender. Abraham kept walking because he believed God was more trustworthy than what he could see.
Every follower of Jesus eventually has to decide which of those two responses will define us. The question isn’t whether following Jesus will cost us something. It will. The question is whether we believe Jesus is worth more than whatever He asks us to surrender.
