The Hatred Required to be a Disciple

I remember struggling a lot with the verses about hating your mother and father and son and daughter. ("If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters--yes, even their own life--such a person cannot be my disciple. Luke 14:26)

It just seemed like such a crazy thing for Jesus to say especially when He told us to love our neighbor as much as we love ourself. How could He be telling us to love our neighbor right after our love for God, and then turn around and tell us to hate our family? I sought the advice of a few friends and they explained it more as loving God so much that anything left for your family looks like hatred compared to your love of God. I decided that was a good way to describe it.

However, I now actually know what it means in my life. To love God with all my heart, it means I have to leave many that I love. Knowing that the separation will be so hard and we don’t want to be separated, that feels like hatred. To hate my mother and father was to take my children and leave America in order to love God by obeying His call on my life. It meant breaking the hearts of both sets of parents, that is hating my parents in comparison to loving God. That is what it means to pick up my cross and follow. Counting the costs was that there was no promise that either set of parents would be there when we came back. We hoped for and longed for the chance to make up for lost time, but that is just it, we have lost that with one set.

Hate your children… really? How could I ever hate my child in comparison to my love of God? I thought I would never be able to understand such a thing. I could never hate a child whom I was blessed enough to receive. A gift from God, how could I ever hate that? The answer for me is leaving my child and returning to Lesotho. It feels like hatred as I walk this journey of obedience.

Hating my family means leaving and letting go. Counting all costs and picking up my cross to be the disciple of Jesus means turning away from the relationships I never wanted to leave. Some are lost temporarily on the earth, others I have lost until eternity.

When any Christian starts telling you that following Jesus is always easy and you won’t have any trouble, just walk away, that isn’t true. Just ask Job. It can cost you everything you hold dear like it did Job. It can mean that your life will be FULL of trials and tribulations. The ONLY thing that is promised when you chose to pick up your cross and follow Him is that you will NEVER be alone.

And while that is normally a very comforting thought for me, it doesn’t seem to be cutting through the grief right now. The cost feels too high. I never wanted to hate my family. I never wanted to lose my friend. I never wanted to fall in love with Beautiful Gate and know that I can’t have my son and Beautiful Gate at the same time because God has made it clear that He needed Elijah to be in America. In the grand scheme of those suffering in the world, I am sure that these things are minimal. They just feel huge when they start to get piled on each other.