13:00.

"From this time many of his disciples turned back
and no longer followed him.
"
"You do not want to leave too, do you?"

Jesus asked the Twelve.
"Simon Peter answered him,
"Lord, to whom shall we go?
You have the words of eternal life.
We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God."
"
- John 6:66-68

Jesus had just fed the 5000 with five loaves and two fishes. So greatly awed were the multitudes that Jesus withdrew to a mountain because He knew they wanted to make Him king by force. The morning after, the crowd searched for Jesus and found Him. Jesus taught that He's the Bread Of Life, that you have to depend fully on Him to really live, that it's only through Him - not traditions or old stories or whatever crutch or placebo you have - that we can find life.

The crowd grumbled and "many of his disciples left".

They "turned back and no longer followed Him" (Jn 6:66)

"You do not want to leave too, do you?" Jesus asked the Twelve.

And Peter summed up the crux of it all: "Lord, to whom shall we go?"

To whom whall we go? If you leave the Lord, to who can you go? When you truly touched God and know His Glory, when you love God for more than what He can do for you, something happens. Your whole consciousness understands that apart from Him, you can do nothing. Nothing that really matters or satisfy what's inside of you. You just know that you can't leave, not now, not ever.

"We have come too far now," Mike Gug said during the opening night of Planetshakers Conf 06.

And we have.

You can't go back now. You can't try to pretend you never knew this God who changed your life. Sometimes, God takes you to places like the other side of the lake. You have followed Him for a while, seen His miracles, been fed by His Words and deeds and He wants you to grow further, to be ready to know Him better and more and He feeds you with knowledge that seems hard to digest. Or He takes you to a dry patch or to the edge of that boat so you can walk out onto the water.

What's your choice then?

Shrink back and go back to the comfortable life you had where you had "just enough" of everything to live comfortably but never grow or answer that tiny voice inside which tells you there is so much more to the Christian life, to your life?

Noooo!

Press on! Keep praying, keep believing, keep knowing that Your God who called you is faithful and able to do more than what your heart can sometimes believe.

Press on!

Maybe turning back is really appealing but yet, it's all too clear that there's really nothing to return to. When you are serious about following God, serious that whatever it takes, you want God's will for your life to be fulfilled, then one day, you are going to come to a point.

It's a point when you are ready.

Ready to handle how it feels like when you are hard pressed on every side, ready to say but I'm crushed; when you are perplexed yet not in despaired; when you feel persecuted but know you are not abandoned; when you are struck down but completely convicted you are not destroyed. (2 Cor 4:8)

And at that point, you know you have come too far to turn back. And because you have asked to follow Him all the days of your life, sometimes, Dad makes sure that there's nothing for you to return to either. You can't move to the left or the right or backwards. The only thing for you to do is to go forward.

And because you are with Him, it is okay.

"I'm alive 'cause You're alive
I'm alive 'cause You're alive
I'm alive 'cause You're alive
I'm alive 'cause You're alive"
- I'm With You, Delirious