Messes?

Vince Antonucci, on his blog and in his book ("I Became a Christian and All I Got was this Lousy T-Shirt" - which has just been added to my list of books to read) writes that, "Following Jesus should not give us warm fuzzies in our heart, but messes in our underwear."

In Mark 10, the people following Jesus were scared. They had good reason to be. Jesus kept telling them he was going to die. "We are going up to Jerusalem," he said, "and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles, who will mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him. Three days later he will rise."

He had just told the rich young ruler to go give everything away, then come back and follow him to eternal life. I wonder if we're too comfortable? Are we too used to the way things are to see the victory on the other side of our fear of uncertainty? Have the "warm fuzzies" of the contemporary church deadened our senses to the point where our response to Jesus is to sadly retreat into our comforts?