Will you also go away?

John 6:67
Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away?

There's a time that will come when all around you seems to fade away. The cost is far greater than when you first committed your life to Christ. What will you do when everything you ever hoped for collapses around you, when your dreams are taken, when your desires seem to be less than a memory? Will you go on? Where do you turn when there is nobody around who can hear you crying in the night? The tire blows on your car, the bank account is empty, there is no income, promises of God seem so far off, as if they will fail, people around you turn down their noses, words you have spoken from God's own mouth are ignored, sin has an ostensible hold that appears as if it will never let go. Forsaken by friend, mocked by family, and despised by foe you begin to wonder whether you are the biggest fraud you have ever known, whether your life is one big lie.

So many have responded to the hard words of Jesus and turned away, never to follow again; others are content to follow with a great distance between them and the Lord. Who will eat His flesh, who will drink His blood? Who will assimilate in the depths of their bowels and take into the untouched places of their souls the broken body and the life-blood of the Holy One, and be identified with His Father's will, whatever death it might mean? Only that you might be with Him. The Son of God has fired out the fools, freeing Himself of all who do not really want Him, only a natural kingdom with carnal ends. You stand there, just you and Almighty God in the flesh, peering eye to eye. You can scarcely look up at such holy beauty. There is such an intensity, an unspeakable passion, a desire burning within His eternal heart for the true "offspring" of His suffering (cf. Isaiah 53:10). And then it comes, the Lord's voice so precious, so priceless, so perfect..."Will you also go away?"

Then trembling, lest your words be cast off as a lie, you manage a cry more meaningful than ten thousand vows and resolutions, "Lord, where will I go? You alone have the words of eternal life. You are Eternal Life. I have given everything to You. I have no one else, I have nowhere else to go. I am lost to this world, but my Lord, my Love, I am found only in You...You are Everything to me." These are no longer just words. It is no longer some well-wishing statement, born from the husk of self-conscious individuality. It is the verity of your life, and Jesus Christ looks upon you with a knowledge of you infinitely deeper than your own, with a mercy and a love that dispels the deepest despair, saying, "Have not I chosen you?"