You Don't Have to Have It All Figured Out Before You Begin

The disciples were confused for most of the time they spent with Jesus.

They argued about who would be greatest. They fell asleep when he needed them most. They misunderstood the parables. They rebuked children he was trying to welcome. They tried to send away the crowds he was trying to feed. They ran when it mattered most.

They were confused, inconsistent, and frequently wrong.

He commissioned them anyway.

The prerequisite that was never there

The institution added a prerequisite that Jesus never required.

You must have it figured out before you begin.

You must have resolved the theological questions. You must have arrived at the correct conclusions. You must have demonstrated sufficient certainty before you are permitted to follow.

This is the lie that has kept more people from the road than almost any other.

Because nobody has it figured out. Not fully. Not the people who claim to.

The history of the church is a history of very certain people being very wrong about very important things. The councils that condemned the faithful. The theologians who defended the indefensible.

Certainty is not the entry requirement. It never was.

What the fog looks like

The disciples walked with Jesus in the flesh for three years.

They had access to him that no one since has had. They could ask him questions directly. They could observe him in every situation.

And they still did not get it. Not fully.

If three years of direct access to the Pioneer himself was not enough to produce theological clarity — what hope does anyone else have?

The fog is the normal condition in which every disciple has ever started.

It is not a sign that you have not arrived yet. It is the normal starting point.

You begin in the fog. And you walk. And the fog does not lift all at once — but it thins. Gradually. As you move.

What is actually required

Not certainty. Not resolved theology. Not the absence of doubt.

Willingness to walk.

That is the entry requirement. The only one Jesus ever stated. Come, follow me. Not: come, affirm this creed and then follow me.

Come. Follow.

The road will form you. The encounters will change you. The practice of the Way will teach you things that no amount of prior theological preparation could teach you.

You do not have to have it figured out before you begin.

You just have to be willing to move.

The permission this gives

If you are reading this with a head full of unresolved questions —

If you have more doubts than certainties —

If the theological landscape feels more foggy than clear —

You are exactly where the disciples were. You are in the normal starting position.

The Pioneer was not waiting for them to resolve their confusion before he commissioned them. He commissioned the confused. He trusted the road to do the forming.

He is still doing that.

The question is not: have I got this figured out?

The question is: am I willing to walk?