"When you were young you dressed yourself and went wherever you wanted; but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you don't want to go." (John 21:18)

I had nothing burning in me to help orphans in Africa. The first time I bumped into the victims of the sex trade, in Asia, I didn't feel compassion.

When I was young, I was motivated by adventure. Now that I'm getting older, Jesus often leads me where I don't want to go.

Isn't that the essence of Lordship? A Lord leads you where you don't want to go.  Someone with authority is going to feel resistance when he has to invoke it.  He's been given the authority to get hard things done and, if he's benevolent, to cause growth in the process.

When Jesus tells Peter he'll be led where he doesn't want to go, he's preparing him for more misadventures like the one with the rooster on the morning of his death. Riding with Jesus through this dark world is a bumpy ordeal.

We are here not simply to hang out with him or eke out a living. He has us here to take back territory from an implacable enemy and to establish the Kingdom in its place.

It's a task that involves pain and often extreme discomfort. When we're young, we dress ourselves and set our own agendas. But as we walk with Jesus for a while, the things that burden his heart begin to touch ours as well.

We're God's agents. The faces of orphans begin to haunt our dreams. Pain-filled places we would never choose on our own become our destination.