Stay on the Road, Stay in Your Lane

Christians are all on the same road walking with Jesus, but God has called each of us to a unique lane in that road.

A couple of weeks ago I drove up and back to Jacksonville for an overnight retreat with our Florida Baptist SEND church planting network. It’s a pretty straight shot, four hours straight up I-95, from Sample Road to Exit 344. Most of the way the interstate is three lanes wide, and I tend to pick the far left lane, not so much because I like to drive fast (although I do) but that lane avoids most of the slow-moving semis. Every driver and every vehicle on that road was heading the same direction, on the same road, yet we all found ourselves in various lanes of traffic, depending on our vehicle, our purpose in driving, our temperament, the amount of traffic and any number of factors.

Following Jesus is a little bit like driving on the interstate. Jesus calls his people to follow him on the one narrow road, but often he calls us into a unique “lane” on the pathway. In this way, Every Christian's calling is the same, and every Christian's calling is unique. We're all on the same road walking with Jesus, but God has called each of us to a unique lane in that road.

We see this reality in the final scene in John’s Gospel, the post-credits epilogue where we find Jesus on the beach meeting his disciples for a final conversation over a breakfast of fish and bread. In this final scene, Peter and Jesus are walking along the shoreline, with John following after them. In their conversation we hear Jesus say, “Follow me, and Stay in your lane.” Stay on the road, and stay in your lane.

God is sovereign and good, and that means he designs each of us as individuals, following him on the same Christ-led path, but in a lane designed uniquely for us, a lane as unique as the way he designed us in the first place.

1. Peter’s Lane

So Peter turned around and saw the disciple Jesus loved following them, the one who had leaned back against Jesus at the supper and asked, “Lord, who is the one that’s going to betray you?” When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, “Lord, what about him?” “If I want him to remain until I come,” Jesus answered, “what is that to you? As for you, follow me.” (John 20:20-22)

They are likely walking along the shoreline. Jesus has just asked Peter three times to affirm his love for Jesus, and Jesus has commissioned and ordained Peter to pastoral ministry. The final call for Peter, Jesus says, “Follow me” (v.19). Following them, then, is John. He’s called the beloved disciple, who was the one who asked Jesus about betrayal at the last supper (John 13:23-25). This reminds the reader that Peter was actually the one who told John, “Hey, ask Jesus who he’s talking about betraying him.” Throughout John’s narrative especially in these last scenes Peter and John have been set next to each other in a sort of comparison and contrast. Finally, Peter blurts out a question every one who has ever had a brother or sister has said to their parents, “What about him?”

Comparison is our natural tendency when we have a relationship with others. It’s a tale as old as time, back to the first brothers Cain and Abel. In that story, comparison was deadly. In our lives, as Teddy Roosevelt said a century ago, at the very least, comparison steals our joy. When our kids ask, “What about them?” We often respond, “You have enough to worry about with yourself.” Or when they ask about something that doesn’t concern them, we say, “Nunya,” a shorthand for “None of your business.”

That’s exactly how Jesus responds.

After telling Peter he would stretch out his arm and follow Jesus in crucifixion and death, Peter asks about John. Jesus says, “Nunya. If I want him to live forever, that’s none of your business.” Instead, Jesus says, “You follow me.” He repeats exactly the same command to Peter as in v.19, “Follow me,” with one change, the emphatic you.

In other words, Jesus tells Peter, “Follow me, and stay in your lane. John has a different and unique relationship with me and a unique way that I have designed and destined him for a purpose, just like you do. What happens with him is between me and him. You follow me, Peter, and don’t compare yourself to him.”

Peter has all that he needs to faithfully and fruitfully follow Jesus. He has been restored three times even though he denied Jesus three times. He’s been commissioned and ordained to be an assistant shepherd to the flock at the service of the Good Shepherd. He is concerned about John getting special treatment from Jesus, but Jesus’s treatment of John ultimately doesn’t concern him.

Follow me, and stay in your lane, Peter.

2. John’s Lane

So this rumor spread to the brothers and sisters that this disciple would not die. Yet Jesus did not tell him that he would not die, but, “If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you?” This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them down. We know that his testimony is true.

Peter had a lane, and so did John. The longer John lived, the more steam a rumor gained that Jesus had promised that John would live until Jesus’s return. D.A. Carson notes that this misunderstanding would have tied into the expectation of Jesus’s return, that Christians would be expecting Jesus to return soon because John was getting old. John’s death before Jesus’s return, then, would have brought stunning disappointment. So John wants to clear the confusion before he dies. He’s called not to live indefinitely, but to follow Jesus while he lives. We always need to check rumors against facts, especially in our viral social media age. For example, a few years a picture of a high school student staring down a Native American man went viral. It looked like the student was harassing the man, and a lot of people expressed immediate and ultimately ignorant outrage. As the story was told more fully, the facts were the opposite of the viral rumor. When Will Smith slapped Chris Rock, immediately people began offering hot takes about what happened and why. Many were wrong, because the facts hadn’t been clarified yet. We must take care not to let rumors or opinions have sway in our hearts, but to check them against the truth. John checks the viral rumors against the truth, thus showing his own calling, his lane on the narrow way of Jesus. Peter is called to shepherding role and John is called to a witnessing role. He is called to provide true testimony, to show and tell and write the glorious work of God in Jesus Christ.

3. Jesus’s Lane

And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which, if every one of them were written down, I suppose not even the world itself could contain the books that would be written. (John 21:25)

John acknowledges here again that some stuff in the synoptic gospels or other oral testimony isn’t in his book, as he did just a few paragraphs ago: “Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book” (20:30). In his earthly ministry, Jesus did signs and stuff beyond counting, and how much more has he done in every moment of history and eternity, because he is the Word eternal. “The Jesus to whom he bears witness is not only the obedient Son and the risen Lord, he is the incarnate Word, the one through whom the universe was created. If all his deeds were described, the world would be a very small and inadequate library indeed” (D.A. Carson).

Jesus’s lane is the whole road. Jesus’s lane is doing a lot of amazing things that we can’t count. As John Piper has said, “Every day, in every circumstance, God is always doing 10,000 things in your life, but you might be aware of only three of them.”

Jesus’s lane is to lead, and ours is to follow.

4. Your Lane

Follow Jesus, and find your lane

One of my favorite illustrations of discovering our lane is the career of football coach Nick Saban. He was at best a mediocre head coach of the Miami Dolphins (and most Phins fans would say that’s generous!). But in college, he is a legend. At Alabama he built the most prolific championship program in history.

Christian Scripture and history is painted with people who found their lane following Jesus.

Moses was a prince of Egypt, and God called him to lead Israel.

David was a shepherd, and God called him a king.

Amos was a gardener and a farmer, and God called him to prophesy.

Peter and John were fishermen, and God called them apostles.

Paul was a scholar, and God called him a missionary.

Augustine was a philosopher, and God called him a pastor.

John Calvin was a lawyer, and God called him a theologian.

William Wilberforce was a politician, and God called him an abolitionist.

Harriet Tubman was a slave, and God called her a liberator.

Billy Sunday was a baseball player, and God called him a preacher.

Charles Colson was a corrupt political operative, and God called him an apologist and evangelist.

And you? Where has Jesus called you on the road? Where is your lane?

One of the best ways I’ve heard of discerning calling (or our lane) is the intersection of need+burden+ability+opportunity.

Does the world need it?

Do you have a burden to do it?

Do you have the skills to do it?

Has God opened a door for it?

Your lane is also the specific season in which you find yourself. We must look forward, but we must in any present moment live into what God has for us in that moment. This summer our family is looking forward to taking a road trip, first to Chicago for the symposium that I’m a part of with the Center for Pastor Theologians, second to Anaheim for the SBC Annual Meeting, and third to Lake Tahoe. I’ve learned this about road trips: for all the joy in the destination, some of the best memories when you look back are the ones you made in the van in the car on the road and on the journey. Don’t miss what God is doing on the road between your start and your destination.

Likewise, once you find your lane, stop swerving all over the road. Too many folks are swerving all over the highway, trying to get involved in everyone else’s business and sphere of influence. To paraphrase a sort of common refrain on Twitter, which says sarcastically, it’s amazing how many experts in epidemiology during the shutdown became experts on foreign policy when Russia invaded Ukraine. When we posture and opine without actual expertise, we don’t look impressive—we look like we’re driving drunk.

Have patience with others in their lane

Driving on the interstate provokes frustration sometimes when the way is crowded with others traveling at a different pace than we want to keep. It reminds me of a song called, “Big Trucks,” by Pedro the Lion:

Dad, dad, why did you let that man
Push you around like that?
You should have beat him down
Down to the ground for that
He said Son, you're still young
And you always jump the gun
There's real people in the big, big trucks
That you flip off when they get in the road
You get so hacked but you pay no mind
To the great, big sign that says “Oversize Load”
Do you really think they can go as fast as you
In your '87 Trans Am?
They know you're in such a terrible rush
But they're going just as fast, as fast as they can

Dad, dad, I really don't understand
What driving big trucks has to do with that man
You shoulda taught him a lesson
About being rude, about talking to you with such an attitude
He said son, you're still young
And you always jump the gun
There's real people in the big, big trucks
That you flip off when they get in the road
You get so hacked but you pay no mind
To the great, big sign that says “Oversize Load”
Do you really think they can go as fast as you
In your '87 Trans Am?
They know you're in such a terrible rush
But they're going just as fast, as fast as they can

Scripture tells us that such patience is the way of love: “Love is patient” (1 Cor 13:4). “In patience bear with one another in love” (Eph 4:2)

This is especially true with those we love the most, like family, parents and kids. Be patient. It’s also true in the public square. I once lamented to my wife that a well-known Christian figure kept addressing some cultural and moral issues, but not others. She said wisely, “He’s got a lane, and he’s staying in it.” To put this in Pauline, biblical language, there is one body yet many members. The most important thing is that we’re on the same road, not so much which lane on the road we occupy.

So, follow Jesus, stay on the road; and stay in your lane.