I used to kid our youngest daughter that she came into this world saying “Let’s go guys.” She was five when we set up a lemonade stand in the front yard. She was ready to flag down all the passing cars. I stepped inside for a minute and when I returned she was nowhere in sight! I looked down the street and she was standing at our neighbor’s front door with the pitcher and cups. I ran down and asked her what she was doing and she said ” “They weren’t stopping.”
That same word (except in Greek) for “let’s go guys” is dierchomai and Jesus uses it to describe the way he led the disciples much of the time. Just about the time they were settled or had things under control Jesus would say” “Dierchomai” and off he would go. They never knew from one day to the next what that meant or where they were going – but he knew. For those of us who like everything on a calendar this is not a comfortable way to live ” is it?
In “Overland to the Islands”” ” the poet Denise Levertov writes:
“Let’s go – much as that dog goes” intently haphazard. ..changing pace and approach but not direction – every step an arrival.” That’s not our preferred way of living as we finally get our lives under control. We want a plan and goals – with few interruptions. That “next step” should be thought through carefully. In a sense Jesus had no interruptions. He had complete flexibility because he left his daily life up to God. He could change directions or go with someone or respond to an individual with no disruption of his day. He had a purpose that was clear and focused – but not a plan in the way we would think about it. Oswald Chambers says ” “Beware of getting ahead of God by the very desire to do His will.”
I’d like to live with no interruptions or “intently haphazard” in that same way. It doesn’t mean living without purpose. It simply means being always ready to be up and off when we hear “let’s go.”