Trust Before You Understand
Matthew 8:18–22
Before Matthew shows us Jesus calming a storm, he records two brief conversations about what it actually means to follow Him. The placement is deliberate. Before Jesus demonstrates His authority over wind and waves, He invites two men to step into the boat, without knowing what’s coming.
Neither of them knows what’s about to happen. Jesus does.
The first man is a religious expert, a scribe who approaches Jesus with remarkable enthusiasm: “Teacher, I will follow You wherever You go.” It sounds wonderfully committed. But Jesus slows him down. “The Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” He isn’t discouraging the man. He is asking him to count the cost. Following Christ has never come with a comfort guarantee. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote with startling directness: “When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die.” Sometimes the cost is reputation. Sometimes relationships. Sometimes career. Sometimes far more.
The second man has the opposite problem. He knows there’s a cost, and he’d rather defer it. “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” His father is still alive — this is a request to wait until family obligations are fully resolved, perhaps years from now. And Jesus answers with the same urgency He always does: “Follow Me.” Kingdom priorities cannot be permanently postponed.
One man moves too quickly, without really counting the cost. The other moves too slowly, waiting for conditions that will never arrive. And Matthew places both conversations before the storm because Jesus knew the storm was coming, and He was asking these men to trust Him before they had any reason to understand why.
That is still what following Jesus requires. Not full understanding. Just trusting the One who is calling you.
Reflect: Which of these two disciples do you most identify with right now — the one who rushes in without counting the cost, or the one who keeps waiting for a more convenient moment?