One step. That’s what I like best about following Jesus. It’s difficult, it’s carrying your cross, but all we have to focus on is one step… one step forward, one step of biting your tongue, one step of empathy, one step of kindness, one step of self-control, one step of making the right choice. And then another….

If we live life as it’s meant to be lived, one step at a time, one minute at a time, perhaps following the lovely Jesus is not as difficult, as insuperable, as impossible, as it seems on our most tired and dejected days.

One more paragraph written; one day more without sugar, without flour; one day more of early to bed, early to rise; one day more of immersion in the grand themes of Scripture while walking (listen to 4 chapters a day, and you will have listened to the entire Bible in a year), the word becoming muscle and sinew in Ann Voskamp’s words; one more session of the life-changing magic of tidying up; one more try at doing unto others what you would they did to you… tiny, tiny things adding up, stitches in the tapestry of a grace-filled radiant life.

The best thing about following Jesus is how immensely democratic it is… anyone can do it. We cannot all write a bestseller, but we can all pray. We cannot all launch a successful business, but we can all learn how to love our family and our friends (for starters!); we cannot all build things, blogs or companies or charities that change the world, but we can all surrender our lives to Jesus, for this minute, this five minutes, this hour.

Following Jesus is one of the few things for which there are no gatekeepers, no bar, a high IQ is unneeded, physical strength and beauty are not required, connections are unnecessary, all it takes to follow Christ is that ancient sacrifice, a humble and a contrite heart, and doing what he tells you minute by minute.

Easy to write, supremely challenging to do… but challenges, after all, are what make life worth living!

“I do not ask to see the distant scene. One step enough for me,” as John Henry Newman wrote.

Image: Christ Walking on the Waters by Julius Sergius Von Klever. Public Domain.