After much soul-searching, Michael Ford of Nashville, Tennessee, a Christian, decided to completely turn over his will and life and follow Jesus, only to wind up sitting in one place for a really long time..
As Mike tells it, the decision to follow Jesus came to him late one night, as he was scrolling through his Instagram and Twitter accounts, checking out the latest posts from people like President Trump and Mr. T.
"I follow lots of folks on social media," noted Mike, "but the one person I hadn't been following was Jesus. I realized that had to change. As Kirk Cameron says, I needed to stop being a lukewarm Christian and truly follow the Lord.”
Mike felt extremely validated when the founder of his local Christian church, Pastor Dave Mills, not only affirmed Michael's decision to follow Jesus Christ but made it the subject of his next Sunday morning sermon, titled “Hitting the Road with J.C.”
To his dismay, however, Mike found that the spiritual high that he'd gotten from deciding to following Jesus was short-lived. “After Sunday morning services, I got into my truck and headed out, ready to go wherever Jesus led me," recounted Mike. "Unfortunately, while my faith was strong, it seemed that my GPS – Godly Positioning System, if you will - was weak. I ended up just sitting in my truck in the middle of the woods, awaiting the Man's instructions.”
At last, figuring that Jesus would eventually want to him to return home to his wife, Mike drove back to his house.
Back at home, however, the same dilemma ensued. Willing with every cell and fiber of his being to follow his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, Mike was stymied in his calling by the fact that he couldn't really see Jesus so as to effectively follow where He was going. And, despite opening his heart up fully to the Lord, he didn't seem to be receiving any “GPS” signals. To his wife's utter confusion, Mike wound up sitting helplessly on their living room sofa, like a deer in headlights, for a really, really long time.
"I felt like a total retard," Mike confessed. "A Lordly loser, if you will."
At his wife's urging, Mike ultimately returned to his place of worship to consult with Pastor Dave. The spiritual leader helped Mike realize that he'd been taking his decision too literally; all that God required of him was to believe, to tithe his income, and to support Christian celebrities, whom Jesus had selected to convey His message to the masses.
“Come to find out I'd been following Jesus all along by following Christian celebrities,” said Mike, smiling abashedly at the obviousness of Pastor Dave's proffered solution. “I just hadn't been following all of them. There are a lot more than you'd realize – Bob Dylan, for instance. And Bono, who plays with an Irish band called U2. Seek and ye shall find, is what's promised, and I've certainly found that to be true.”
Mike urges anyone else similarly confounded in trying to follow Jesus to follow him, Michael, on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other social media forums. “I'm not Jesus, of course,” Mike clarified with a humble chuckle. “Not even close. But I can promise you that wherever I am, He's not far away.”
