Travel Light

“Do not take a purse or bag or sandals…” (Luke 10:4)

Nothing reduces a paternalistic approach to sharing the gospel like being in need ourselves.

The release of the inner man’s potential is often contingent on the breaking of the outer man, which usually occurs through pain and loss. It’s my experience that the preponderance of compassion tends to seep out through the cracks created by hard blows in my life and attaches itself to other damaged people.

Our humanity-wide shared spiritual poverty is the lowest common denominator between us and inducts us all into a hall of shame of sorts. We’re all soul-broken, cracked and leaking. Some of us have to be convinced how poor we are. Loss is the master teacher. Unfortunately, only some of us learn her lessons or pass her tests.

Jesus told his Seventy missionals to go out with nothing but what was on their backs, nothing that they could hold over the people they were there to serve. This was “the best way Jesus knew to move his followers into the arms of God,” says Scott Bessenecker, “and bind them to the needy people who would welcome them.”

[An excerpt from my unfinished commentary on Luke 10. I hope to finish and publish it by Spring!]