What you follow forms you...

Have you ever noticed the things you follow are the things that form you?

I started running in November. This is a big feat for someone who is 35 and the last time I ran was, well, the mile in the 8th grade. When I decided I wanted to pick up this new hobby, I knew I needed to learn from someone on how to train well. There is a lot of information out there on the BEST training programs out there! I'm amazed that there are so many secrets to a successful training program.

I decided to pick a program to follow that met me right where I was and could guide me to what could be. So I began running. I started out running in 30 second increments and now am up to a five minute run/1 minute walk pattern for up to 20 miles! Fairly amazing.

In life we become formed by what we follow. I've become formed by the program I followed. It came with a certain methodology that I've not only applied to running, but to many other areas of life. I've been formed by a marathon training program.

Sometimes we are formed by the people we follow, the books we read, the genres in which we pour into. Have you noticed that you can pick out the guy who follows Fox news fairly easily from the guy who follows NPR? Have you noticed you can pick out the girl who spends her time reading Cosmo from the girl who reads National Geographic?

It is important to pay attention to the things we follow.

Jesus, understood that by following people would become. So when he invited people into his way he'd ask them to follow. One of the first places we read this in Mark takes place in Mark 1:16-20

¹⁶As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. ¹⁷"Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men." ¹⁸At once they left their nets and followed him.

¹⁹When he had gone a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John in a boat, preparing their nets.²⁰Without delay he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him.

It is such a different invitation. It seems a bit backwards. It wasn't necessarily a call to believe, although that invitation was given in verse 15. It was an invitation to follow.

What a difference in perspective. The onus of being made into something new is on Jesus as we follow after Him. It is not on us! We become representative of that which we follow.

What are you following?

What does your life communicate about what or whom you follow?

As you seek to follow Jesus what do you find yourself being made into? Do you look more like the one you follow?