D17 P10: Never Not a Chance

Jesus and His disciples are in a boat crossing the Sea of Galilee, rowing (not leisurely motoring) their way across. There was no Igloo cooler on the boat, and there was no drive-through McDonald's waiting for them on the other side. You will eat if and only if you bring your own food. Except that they didn't. With no apparent gluten allergy, it was bread they were missing. (Mark 8:14-21)

WWJD? What will Jesus do? Will He tell a parable about ten virgins, of whom five were not prepared with oil in their lamps? Will He turn crumbs into a feast, with leftovers? Will He quote Isaiah's teaching on the value of fasting? Nope, nope, and nope.

"Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees!" What? What in the world does that mean? What's that have to do with anything we've been talking about for the last two years? And most importantly ... does this mean we're not getting any bread???

Jesus took this moment of a not-so-serious problem to explain something about the Kingdom of God. For the Master Discipler, every moment was a discipleship opportunity, which is our 10th of 17 truths about discipleship (the "D17"):

Every moment is a discipleship opportunity.*

What this doesn't mean: We become annoying busybodies always trying to drive the conversation to the "deep" stuff. Most of discipleship doesn't happen in the rarefied air of lofty theological monologues. Rather, most of it happens in the daily rhythms of life, when you're talking about baseball and gardening and children's shoes and sock-eating clothes dryers. It happens seated next to each other on the bleachers at the kids' game or while changing the brakes.

What this does mean: Our radar is always on. The radar is good for recognizing those sudden opportunities to drive down to the deep stuff. But the radar is also good for being constantly aware that the person I'm sitting next to at the game or talking with about kids' shoes is someone I can influence to follow Jesus more in some way. Not necessarily taking them from 0 to 100 in 5 minutes, but offering a new idea, an attitude, an offer to pray, or just unconditional love. Always.

Recall our first truth of the D17: Discipleship is moving from unbelief to belief in every area of life in light of the Gospel. Based on that definition, considering every moment a discipleship opportunity means that every minute of every day is a chance that I might encourage someone to move away from unbelief toward belief is one area of life.

That means every moment of your life has the potential to see Jesus followed more faithfully. That makes every moment important.

* This idea is based on writings by Caesar Kalinowski.