In His Steps
This morning while sitting in church I
made a decision - I would not watch TV or browse the Internet today.
These activities have become so much a part of my life that I felt I
needed a break from them. What better day exists to take a break from
the world than the Sabbath? As I returned home from church, I was
somewhat fidgety - what would I do all day? Read a book, maybe?
As I looked over my bookshelf, I noticed a book that I read years ago as part of a BYU course on the New Testament. It is entitled In His Steps by Charles M. Sheldon.
In His Steps is the story of a preacher and his affluent
congregation who are interrupted during church one day by a
shabbily-dressed stranger who asked of them:
I heard some people singing at a church prayer meeting the other night,
‘All for Jesus, all for Jesus,
All my being’s ransomed powers,
All my thoughts, and all my doings,
All my days, and all my hours.’
and I kept wondering as I sat on the steps outside just what they meant by it. It seems to me there’s an awful lot of trouble in the world that somehow wouldn’t exist if all the people who sing such songs went and lived them out. I suppose I don’t understand. But what would Jesus do? Is that what you mean by following His steps? It seems to me sometimes as if the people in the big churches had good clothes and nice houses to live in, and money to spend for luxuries, and could go away on summer vacations and all that, while the people outside the churches, thousands of them, I mean, die in tenements, and walk the streets for jobs, and never have a piano or a picture in the house, and grow up in misery and drunkenness and sin.”
The man then collapsed and died a few days later in the care of the preacher. The next week the preacher was constantly drawn to the question “What would Jesus do?” In his words:
The appearance and words of this stranger in the church last Sunday made a very powerful impression on me. I am not able to conceal from you or myself the fact that what he said, followed as it has been by his death in my house, has compelled me to ask as I never asked before ‘What does following Jesus mean?’ I am not in a position yet to utter any condemnation of this people or, to a certain extent, of myself, either in our Christ-like relations to this man or the numbers that he represents in the world. But all that does not prevent me from feeling that much that the man said was so vitally true that we must face it in an attempt to answer it or else stand condemned as Christian disciples.
He then made the following invitation to his congregation:
I want volunteers from the First Church who will pledge themselves, earnestly and honestly for an entire year, not to do anything without first asking the question, ‘What would Jesus do?’ And after asking that question, each one will follow Jesus as exactly as he knows how, no matter what the result may be.
The remainder of the book reviews the struggles, trials, and blessings experienced by those who chose to take the path of more honestly asking of themselves “What would Jesus do?”
As I read the tales of hardship and blessing, I was and am compelled to ask of myself, “What would Jesus do in my situation?” What steps would he take to resolve the issues that I face? What feelings and actions do I harbor that he would not? Am I willing to make a commitment like the people of Sheldon’s story? These questions I have yet to answer. I only know that if I am to honestly consider myself a disciple of Christ I must more frequently seek to be the answer to the eternal question of “What would Jesus do if he were in my place?”
In His Steps is now in the public domain and thus free for anyone to access. The full text can be freely downloaded from Project Gutenberg’s archives or purchased inexpensively from amazon.com. I highly recommend reading the book and asking of yourself “What would Jesus do in my shoes?” The answer could change your life. I’m going to start working to allow it to change mine.