To everyone's surprise, Matthew got up and followed without hesitation. The predictable life that Matthew had settled for was now being replaced with the adventurous life of faith that God had always intended him to have!

Is the life you have settled for the one God had in mind for you? Does it require real faith? Does your life demonstrate that, like Abraham, you are "fully convinced that what God has promised he is also able to do" (Rom. 4:21)? When you and I settle for less than what God has in mind for our lives, we will find that our encounters with Christ (in the proclaimed Word, a sermon, a book we are reading, an insightful friend, concerned parent) tend to be more unsettling than peaceful!

He is the light that disrupts your sleep, the voice that speaks through your conscience, the truth that exposes your façade, the friend that won't give up on you long after you have given up on yourself. Jesus' embracing of outcasts and sinners ruffled the feathers of the religious elite. Yet, his calling those sinners to repentance and a brand new life was also more than some were prepared to handle. Whether lost in our sinful despair or in a state of delusional self-righteousness, Jesus offers himself as a friend to whomever needs him ~ and a second chance to any who would trust him.