We've reached the end of this series, but not the end of the journey. If you've understood what I've been saying, you know the journey never ends this side of heaven. There's no arrival point, no graduation from the wobble, no moment where you can declare you've figured it all out. There's only the ongoing, daily, moment-by-moment work of following Jesus through whatever conditions you find yourself in.
So this isn't really a conclusion. It's an invitation.
An invitation to stop living the lie of the straight line and embrace the reality of the wobble. To stop performing discipleship and start practicing it, take responsibility for your actions and attitudes and stop making excuses, and navigate faithfully rather than drift passively. This isn't an invitation to adopt my system, I don't have one. I have principles learned through decades of wobbling, and tools that have helped me navigate. But your journey is yours alone. The Holy Spirit is creating a path for you that no one else has walked. This isn't an invitation to lower your standards. Embracing the wobble doesn't mean accepting mediocrity or rationalizing disobedience. It means pursuing Christ-likeness with honest assessment of where you actually are, not where you pretend to be. This isn't an invitation to comfortable faith. What I'm describing is harder than the straight-line myth. It requires more honesty, more responsibility, more engagement, more persistence. It's just that it's actually true.
This is an invitation to authenticity, to stop maintaining the gap between who you present yourself to be and who you actually are. An invitation to responsibility, to own your actions and attitudes completely. An invitation to process over arrival, to value the journey of formation over the fantasy of perfection. An invitation to community, to stop trying to navigate alone. An invitation to honesty about tensions, to hold the fullness of following Christ even when it's complex and uncomfortable.
Where do you start? Start with honesty. Where am I actually at in my discipleship? What's the gap between my public persona and my private reality? What am I blaming on circumstances that I'm actually responsible for? Where am I drifting instead of navigating? Write it down. Be specific. Be brutally honest. You can't navigate from a position you're not actually in.
Then take one step, not ten steps, or a complete overhaul. One step. Maybe it's reaching out to one person for honest conversation. Maybe it's establishing one consistent practice. Maybe it's setting one boundary. Maybe it's having one difficult conversation you've been avoiding. Maybe it's confessing one specific struggle instead of maintaining the pretense. One step. From your actual position. In the direction of Christ. Then take the next. And the next.
This is how navigation works. Not dramatic overhauls, not New Year's resolution energy that lasts three weeks. Just consistent, faithful, small adjustments over time. The brutal reality is that you're going to fail. You're going to drift, make mistakes, fall back into old patterns, disappoint yourself, wobble wildly. That's not if - it's when. And when it happens, acknowledge it honestly. Repent where needed. Learn what you can. Get back to navigating. Don't wallow or use failure as evidence to give up. The rhythm of discipleship is to navigate, drift, course-correct, navigate, over and over. The goal isn't to eliminate drift rather it's to recognize it sooner and recover faster.
Let me challenge you with the question, Do you want to be a casual Christian or a true disciple? A casual Christian attends church when convenient, prays when in crisis, includes Jesus in a life they're already living. A true disciple orients their entire life around following Christ. They take responsibility for their own growth, engage consistently and in authentic community. You navigate faithfully through whatever conditions they encounter. You wobble, but you wobble toward Christ. The difference isn't perfection. It's whether you're actually engaged in the journey or just maintaining religious habits. Whether you take full responsibility or blame your lack of growth on external factors. Whether you're willing to be honest or committed to maintaining performance.
I can't make that choice for you. Your discipleship is your responsibility. The life of a true disciple is harder in many ways. It requires more honesty, more responsibility, more engagement, more vulnerability. It's also incomparably richer. More authentic. More connected. More transformative. More alive. You're made for this. You're called to this journey. The Holy Spirit is ready to guide you through it.
The invitation stands, it will always stand. Because God is always calling disciples to follow, always working to form them, always patient with their wobbling, always faithful in His formation. Will you accept the invitation? Will you take responsibility and start navigating? Will you embrace the wobble as the reality of faithful discipleship? All that's needed is for you to take the first honest, responsible, faithful step.
So take it. And then take the next one. And the next. All the way home.