Recently I completed a 4,400-mile road trip with my two sons, Angelo and Brandon. As we moved from North Carolina to Alaska we decided that we were going to take all of our three cars with us. My wife and daughters flew, while my sons and I drove.

      My son Angelo was very excited about driving the BMW while I drove a powerful 1999 GMC Suburban that I used to pull my Toyota Camry and boxes that filled the SUV to capacity. It was an exciting trip indeed! During that trip the Lord gave me some very practical spiritual lessons. In this article I will like to share the first one.

      The Lord revealed to me that many of us are being followed. He revealed to me that some do not realize they are being followed while others are aware though are making it very difficult to be followed. Jesus knew that he had followers; as a mater of fact, he himself chose his first followers and called them His disciples. In Matthew 4:19 Jesus said,

“And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” (KJV)

      Jesus gave us some powerful lessons concerning how to allow others to easily follow and learn from you. Jesus did not only allow his disciples to see Him ministering, but He allowed them to see His life. That alone is a lot to chew on.

      What made our trip to Alaska so difficult was the fact that my son Angelo and I were driving different cars, which required us to abandon our driving preferences in order to follow each other. Here is the practical lesson:

1. If I was going too fast and not paying attention to my son; leaving him on red lights, doing quick turns, etc. I was, for sure, going to lose him. This is the group that is so focused on the “vision” that they forget about the followers. Beloved, we lose them; we lose our kids, our families, our disciples, etc. because we are not taking the time to look back and check on them, we don’t take the time to slow down.

2. If I place 100% of my attention on my back mirror I will crash for sure because I will lose sight of where I am going. This is the group that is so into the people that they forget about God. They don’t read the Word, they don’t study the Word, they don’t pray, they don’t worship, etc. Believe me when I tell you, sooner or later, you will crash.

      Are you an easy person to follow? or is it impossible to keep up with you? This is not about how spiritual you are, how fast you can get from point A to point B, your knowledge of the Greek, your titles, your impressive testimony, how much you know, how big is your building, how large your membership list, how well you can preach, etc. but about how many can you take with you. Jesus is the Lord of lords and the King of kings; how much do you think He needed to slow down to allow the disciples to follow Him effectively? Jesus is calling us to make disciples just as He did.

      If as leaders, as pastors, as fathers and mothers, we find ourselves alone in our journey with Christ, perhaps we have lost our children along the way. Slow down, call them up, wait for them and keep a good balance of focusing on the vision while making yourself easy to follow.