That challenges us to think of people whom we have allowed to hold us back. And what about people we may be keeping from pulling out all the stops as followers of Christ?

I remember a "Christian" marketing analyst who told me I'd never make it as a television communicator unless I changed my thrust from Christ-centered, biblical messages to more acceptable "pop" psychology. My answer was, "If changing what I've done for thirty years is the price of easy success, then I'm prepared not to make it. But I'm counting on the fact that people in America long for Christ's love and power. I'd rather raise the spiritually dead than bury the spiritually dead!"

The Trouble with Looking Backward

Let's look in again on the band of disciples and inquirers who were walking along the road with Jesus. After a time He turned to another potential disciple and said, "Follow Me." This man's excuse tumbled out almost as quickly as the previous man's equivocation. Note, however, that his "but" is not implied; it is flatly stated. "Lord, I will follow You, but let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house."

Upon first hearing, that sounds like the excuse of the second man. He has to take care of an aging father; this one has to say goodbye to his family and friends at home. We discover the difference in their excuses from Jesus' discerning response. To this third man He says, "No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God." In answering as He did, Jesus gives us another one of His hard sayings.

In our mind's eye we can see what would happen if a person looked back while plowing a furrow. The furrow would be crooked. Plowing a straight furrow requires keeping the eyes focused on a point out ahead. Jesus' words "looking back" really mean "constantly looking back" in the Greek. Anyone who plowed that way through a field would surely run a zigzag course.

By use of this simple agricultural proverb, Jesus has given this man and us a very profound spiritual truth. Constantly looking back makes us unfit for the demanding challenges of not only the future, but the present. The word for "fit" in Greek is euthetos, meaning "ready for use, adapted, well-placed." The man who wants to go home to say farewell to his family, friends and neighbors isn't really ready to follow Jesus as the leader of his life. He is more concerned about what he has to leave behind.

The Master sees beneath the words of the man's "but." He understands with divine insight what's in the man's heart. If he goes home, he will probably never come back. Jesus senses that he wants to go home to do more than say farewell. The word "farewell" in Greek is apotaxasthai from apotasso. It means "to detach" or "to separate," but it also can be used as a military term for assignments to a detachment of soldiers.

I suspect the man wants to straighten out his relationships so he can be sure everything will go according to his plans. Perhaps he has some broken relationships to mend and perhaps some hurts to heal. Here is a man who has his anchor stuck in the mud of the unforgiven and the unresolved. He is thinking about the past rather than the future.