This post is written by Leslie Hudson as a companion for Unit 35, Session 1 of The Gospel Project for Adults, Volume 12: From This World to the World to Come (Summer 2024).

All my 8-year-old son wanted for Christmas that year was a drone. My mom found one for him online, for less than $40, and had it under the tree for him to open at her house on Christmas morning. He didn’t realize what was in the box when he started tearing off the paper because it was so very small. But when he saw “drone” on the box, he yelped in excitement. He could barely wait for everyone else to open gifts; all he cared about was flying it.

Admittedly, I did a bad job of parenting that Christmas morning: I didn’t see the very clear words “Not for use in windy conditions.” He popped in the batteries, opened the controller, and took off outside. It was a cloudy, blustery, almost-raining-almost-snowing kind of morning, and if I’d stopped for one second and thought about that four-ounce drone against 15 to 20-mile-per-hour winds, I would have stopped him. But innocent boyhood excitement had triumphed over my rational mothering mind.

We all watched in excitement as the drone rose off the ground, got into the air, and immediately flew away. Far away. Amid all our confused yelling (“Bring it back!” “Don’t go so high!” “What are you doing?”), he insisted that he wasn’t controlling it—the wind was carrying it away. Even the magical failsafe “return to me” button wasn’t working. Christmas-day elation turned to panic as the drone drifted out of sight. And everyone standing around—all three generations gathered for Christmas—became the search and rescue party.

We organized and began pacing, looking for a three-inch square, two-inch high, blue plastic drone in approximately two acres of shin-high grass in my parents’ field. The temperature dropped, the wind picked up, and the spitting snow started to hurt our faces. We were all bummed for my son; he was crushed. But after an hour, even he admitted it was time to give up. My mom promised she’d get him another one, but still we all walked in the house with heads hanging and spirits sinking.

We started cooking a special Christmas meal and the other kids started playing with their toys. My son put on a brave face and did his best to enjoy Christmas with everyone whose gifts had not gotten blown away. No one noticed that my brother-in-law, Russ, hadn’t come in with the rest of us. We talked about maybe watching a movie or playing a game; honestly, anything to take our minds off the missing drone would be great.

But then Russ walked in the door, face red from the cold and icy rain in his hair. He walked up to my son with a sly grin on his face and opened his hand: he was holding the drone. As my son yelped in excitement even more loudly than the first time, he gasped, “I thought it was gone!” Russ knelt down to look him in the eye and said, “I was never going to give up until I found it.” His persistence saved a little boy from a broken heart and gave me a newfound admiration for his selflessness and determination. I’ll never forget the look on Russ’s face that day; his words were no exaggeration. He was determined to find it. He was going to stay out there until it was back in my son’s hands.

That’s the exact look I picture on Paul’s face when I read the words of Acts 21:13. He knew God had sent him to Jerusalem, and he knew there would be trouble there. But that didn’t stop him from going, even as people who loved him (and loved Jesus!) did their best to talk him out of it. The Bible tells us that Jesus had the same issue: He knew God’s plan was for Him to go to Jerusalem, and His friends tried to talk Him out of it as well. Yet Jesus “steadfastly set his face to go” (Luke 9:51, KJV). Russ wasn’t going to let anything keep him from finding that drone. Jesus didn’t let anyone talk Him out of going to His death. Neither would Paul. Could the same be said about you and me as we walk the path God has for our lives? It’s no secret that the Christian life has no promise of ease; in fact, you’re promised difficulty and struggle (John 16:33). But God is working out even those hard, hopeless journeys for His glory and kingdom. As we watch Paul accept the challenge, hopefully we all learn the same determination in our own faith this week.

Leslie Hudson loves her mornings of silence, coffee, and Jesus—not in that order. She lives with her husband and kids in White Bluff, Tennessee, where they raise blueberries, figs, and bees. She loves to spend her free time reading, writing, journaling, and helping others know and follow Jesus.