After Jesus asks the disciples who people are saying he is, he then asks them, “But who do you say that I am?” Matthew quotes Peter as saying, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” (Matthew 16:13-16)

Jesus asks us the same question, “Who do you say that I am?”  Like Peter, are we willing to say that Jesus is the son of the living God?  Are we willing to follow him and his will in the daily decisions of our lives, large and small?

The following story illustrates an initial failure of this standard followed by the action of God’s grace in redeeming the outcome.

After working for Mobil for 37 years I started to sense that it was time to do something different with my life.  Following several months of prayer and discernment, I decided to retire early and accept an opportunity to work full-time with Christians in Commerce (now WorkLight), a ministry to the workplace.

I informed my boss of my intentions, but he asked me to hold off for a couple of months before I told anyone what I intended to do.  It turned out that he was involved in negotiating a possible merger with Exxon.  As a part of the merger there was a retention bonus if you stayed on until the merger was completed, calculated by various multiples of your annual salary depending on the level of your position.  A couple of months later the merger was announced along with the retention bonus.  I got caught up in all the talk about the amount of money involved and arranged with Christians in Commerce to delay the beginning of my work for them for six months. 

A month later I was flying home from a business trip, looking out the window at an interesting cloud formation and thinking about the future.  All of sudden I felt like the Lord was saying: “So, you tell me you want to work for me in ministry.  I arrange an opportunity, and now you put me off for some extra money!  Haven’t I taken care of you and your family?”  It felt like a slap in the face.  What had I done?

The next day I told my boss that I had made a mistake.  I had made a commitment to begin working for a Christian ministry and needed to keep my commitment. I could not stay on until the merger was completed.  I would forgo the retention bonus.  As it turned out, the merger took almost two years to complete.  Had I stayed on to receive the bonus, I would have surely missed the many blessings of having worked for Christians in Commerce for the next nine years of my life.

How have you been challenged in following Jesus and doing his will?