Mark 4:35 (NKJV): 35 On the same day, when evening had come, He said to them, “Let us cross over to the other side.”
After all the parables and the explanations for His disciples, after a vigorous campaign of preaching and teaching, after much healing and miracles, Jesus was now ready to do it all over again on the other side of the sea. It's not that Jesus was against vacations or resting, many times He resorted to the mountains to pray and recoup from the labor of ministry, but He was on a time table. There was much preaching and teaching to be done and little time to do it in.
Every time I hear or read those words "let us cross over to the other side", I think about the times I started over in ministry. I think about the missionary spirit that begins again in a new place. I think about what it has been like to start two churches in places I knew not a single person, and felt like a "fish out of water". The insecurity that comes with such a daunting task. The risk of failure and how it eats away at one's resilience and the peer shame that accompanies it. But then I remember that Jesus led the way and called me into this glorious ministry of making disciples for the kingdom of God. What a life! What a Savior!