Who Are You Following?

My eyes were glued to the television, the National Geographic Channel to be more specific. I watched as one by one they jumped in, following their leader into a river of huge crocodiles! “They” refers to animals known as gazelles, beautiful deer like creatures. It was a frightening sight as the crocs effortlessly tore the gazelles apart. Out of the 22 gazelles that jumped into the river with the hopes of making it to the other side, only 5 made it out alive! Those are NOT good odds if you ask me. But this plays out in the life of the gazelles repeatedly. Why would they follow their leader so willingly, even to their death? The simple answer is that it was their natural instinct to follow the leader. Once the lead gazelle jumped in the river, their instinct kicked in to follow His lead. Unfortunately, it led to their surmise. If you think about it, it sounds absurd, down right foolish to do this, right? I know if you are like me you quickly said yes! But I think we are a lot like those gazelles. Sometimes we follow the leader (friends, co-workers, or even famous people) and end up in some terrible situations, unthinkable circumstances or precarious predicaments. We fail to understand that the person we are following might not have our best interests in mind or even furthermore they may not have assessed the consequences of going in a particular direction. I have seen it time and time again and always (sooner or later) the end result is destruction.

Perhaps the outcome could be completely different if we are careful about who we choose to follow. I can’t think of a better leader than Jesus! For the gazelles it was their natural instinct to follow their leader, but for us, we must make a conscious decision to follow Christ.  Digging a little deeper into the life of the gazelles there are some principles that we can learn that are applicable to our walk with Christ:

1) Know who you are following. The gazelles knew who they were following. There was no confusion amongst the ranks so to speak. We must be clear that we are followers of Christ, no if’s, and’s, or but’s. We cannot be fickle. We are either going to follow Him or we are not. 1 Corinthians 11:1 says “Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.”

2) Trust who you are following and follow without reservations. Like those gazelles jumped in the river despite the obvious danger, we too must put our complete trust in God no matter the circumstances. Our trust must not be based on our understanding or favorable circumstances. We find in Proverbs 3:5-7 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not to your own understanding but in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths.”

3) Understand the consequences of who you are following. We must know what it means to follow Christ and that there are consequences for our choices. In Luke 14:28 we find these words "But don't begin until you count the cost. Furthermore, we must fully understand that in our walk with Christ, just as it happened with the gazelles, following Christ will lead to death (of the flesh). It is a requirement that our flesh be crucified, rendered useless daily. We cannot follow God without dying to ourselves. The scripture says “Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”         Galatians 5:24

As we follow Christ, applying these principles to our lives it will confirm over and over again that He ALWAYS leads us into what is best for us. He already has our life script written out, we just need to follow His lead.

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Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. Mark 8:34