This summer, CatholicMom.com is hosting an on-line book discussion group for Sherry Weddell’s Forming Intentional Disciples. Each session will focus on one chapter of the book, and yours truly is participating. Hit the link above to see all of the participants, and to find the discussion questions.

Chapter 8 of Forming Intentional Disciples concerns the last two thresholds: seeking and discipleship. A seeker is one who actively seeking Christ, but isn’t yet actively following Him. The seeker becomes a disciple by “dropping his nets” as Peter and Andrew did, following Jesus where ever he may lead. Becoming a disciple is a scary thing: it means saying, with Mary, “Lord, let it be done to me according to your word,” and meaning it. It means being willing to pull up stakes, leaving home and family and security and heading off into the unknown

Or does it? It did for Peter and Andrew, certainly. But what about you and me? Is Jesus going to ask me to abandon my wife and children and scoot off to Africa with a staff in my hand and only one coat?

The answer, I think, is “maybe, but probably not”. I’m married, a marriage sanctified by Christ in the sacrament of marriage; in Jesus’ own words, we have become one flesh. It’s not unheard of in Christian history for a disciple to leave his wife and kids, but it seems much more likely that I’m called to stay and live up to my familial obligations in all Christian charity.

And there’s the rub: even if I’m not called to leave everything and everyone I know behind, I’m still called to bring Christ to everyone I know—to everyone who knows me and sees me on a daily basis. And even if I’m not called to leave my home, I’m called to leave everything behind that separates me from Christ, especially my sins and my inordinate desires. Spiritual journeys can’t be measured in miles, and the most arduous spiritual journey might take place within four walls.

Discipleship should scare us: Jesus tells us to count the cost. But we should be scared about the right things.

And then, St. Thomas Aquinas taught that grace perfects nature. If you become a disciple, God will use you in strange and unexpected ways: but you will find that the things you’re called to do build on your skills and talents and will come to be the most natural things in the world to you. They may be strange ways, but they will the right ways.