More Lessons in Discipleship: "Becoming is Superior to Being"

Sabbath School Class—A Life of Discovery
March 14, 2008
Larry R Evans

Class teaching notes will be posted on Friday

Quiz for Reflection

1. It is wrong for true disciples to question God’s care for them or their loved ones. [Mk 4:37-41] True or False?

2. Sometimes disappointments, mistakes and heartaches teach insights not easily learned with successes. [Mk 6:6-13 then Mk 6:45-52] True or False?

3. Episodes in life often reveal personal weaknesses which need to be remedied if we are to be the kind of disciple God wants us to be. [Mk 6:51,52] True or False?

4. Those who defend God’s truth are disciples of Christ. [Mt 23:23] True or False?

5. The disciples’ ignorance kept them fearful. [Mk 9:30-32] True or False?

6. Disciple-building is another word for appointment to service. [Mk 9:31] True or False?

7. God’s disciples should not be subject to feelings and emotions which cause them to fluctuate between hope and fear. [See E.G. White in Testimonies to Ministers and Gospel Workers, pp. 518,519] True or False?

Reflective Review

Our study this week continues with the theme of discipleship and disciple building. What is it that transforms a good disciple into a great disciple? Biblically it doesn’t seem to mean that a true disciple makes no mistakes. Some of those whom Jesus chose made some big ones! Is there a mindset that one must have to step over the threshold from good to great? Is it something disciples do? Do life’s experiences play a part? Someone once wrote that “Becoming is superior to being.” (Paul Klee) Could it be that this is at the heart of discipleship – that of “becoming!” Is there something about how we face the joys and heartaches of everyday life that make us what we are? Could they make more of us if we had a different mindset? Do we see every day experiences as opportunities to enlarge our horizon. When the disciples, for example, became frightened for their own lives when the storm was threatening, why did they accuse Jesus of not caring for them? What was it about them that caused them to see in Jesus a lack of care or concern? What can we learn from their experience? Was this the fault of Jesus or did it reflect more about them? It has been said that “A person can grow only as much as his horizon allows.” Perhaps part of “becoming” a disciple, then, is to allow God to enlarge our horizon. Perhaps the fears we carry closest to our heart--which sometimes manifest themselves with our withdrawing, our anger and our frustration—come as a result of our own limited horizon. What we don’t understand, it seems, we fear and we act out that fear in numerous ways. In teaching His disciples, Christ did not isolate them from the sick, the hurting, the angry, the demon-possessed or the scowling critic. It was part of their “becoming” process. Neither did He abandon them. He lived the experience with them. I like the way Simone Weil put it, “We see either the dust on the window or the view beyond the window, but never the window itself.” Perhaps the hardest part of being a disciple is believing that there is a part of one’s experience that cannot seen but someday will make all things clear. “Becoming” doesn’t necessarily mean being able to see “the window”. In fact, not seeing might be the very opportunity we need to broaden our horizon and “become” the possibility we never considered possible. Maybe that’s what Habakkuk had in mind when he wrote,

Hab 3:16-19

16 I heard and my heart pounded,
my lips quivered at the sound;
decay crept into my bones,
and my legs trembled.
Yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity
to come on the nation invading us.
17 Though the fig tree does not bud
and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
and no cattle in the stalls,
18 yet I will rejoice in the LORD,
I will be joyful in God my Savior.

19 The Sovereign LORD is my strength;
he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
he enables me to go on the heights. (NIV)

In the context of hardships and disappointments, “becoming” can take on a new significance as William Barclay points out: “Endurance is not just the ability to bear a hard thing, but to turn it into glory.”

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