We don’t follow someone because we think we have the best answer or the best adventure or because we know how to beat the antagonist in the story.

We follow someone because we believe he has something we do not.

When the disciples were called out of their busy, productive lives as fishermen and tax collectors and ordinaries, they said yes to a very mysterious man with an authoritative voice. They knew little about his mission or his history or his agenda, but they didn’t ask questions. They followed.

They chased the mystery that called them into following. They said yes before they knew all the answers about where to direct the clamoring children and how to calm a crowd. They said yes before they knew demons would flee when they spoke and before they knew entire towns would reject them as they shook the dust off their feet.

The disciples chased mystery as they chased Jesus, leaning in close for the next surprise to tumble off his lips. Each disciple knew that Jesus had access to something they did not and they must have believed that this knowledge was worth following, however crazy it seemed.

I love that they didn’t have the answers. I love that they learned as they followed and they followed with faith that the mysteries made sense.

I imagine the curious looks they gave each other when Jesus motioned for the children to come and when he held up wine to toast at the party and when he reached out to touch the leper and the blind man and the bleeding woman.

I imagine their shrugs and their puzzled stares and their visible decision to continue chasing this crazy man and the crazy mystery of his love on earth.

They didn’t have Paul’s letters or eye witness accounts or pounds of history books to corroborate oral histories.

I like that they kept saying yes, anyway.

I like that the disciples were fishermen and tax collectors and ordinary folks who kept saying yes to following the footsteps of a man who loved with the authority of heaven.

And I like that Jesus only needed their “Yes” to pull them into the mystery. Did they ever dream they would see the dead raised or demons cast out? Did they grow up hoping to someday throw a party with their Savior as a co-host?

They didn’t know the Greek and Hebrew way to decipher his movements, but they knew his movements because they were following him so closely.

I want to follow Jesus that way.

I want to say yes because I believe in what He is about and not because it makes sense. I want to get pulled into the mystery in a way that makes my eyebrows shoot into my hairline – a way that makes me ask, “Is this the right thing?”

There is mystery and magic bound up in the monotony of the everyday and there is only one person we can follow to spook it out from underneath the moldy rocks.

When mystery is spooked out from under moldy rocks it might seem like it had a better life hidden underneath. It might seem like a bad idea to lift up the rock at all. It might not be reasonable or pleasant or comfortable, but mystery is surprising in that way.

Sometimes all of our knowledge makes mystery look very undesirable and we end up missing out on that very beautiful, very unique thing that captured the spirits of those disciples.

I want to follow Jesus when He lifts up rocks that look fine where they are. I want to be next to him when he walks through closed doors and when he reaches out to touch the ugliness.

I want to follow Jesus because He is what I am not – He is the best answer, the best adventure and the best way to beat the antagonist fighting for sway on my soul.