Often times in life many of us do not choose the road less traveled on. We look for the easy way out, or we look at someone else and the path they are on, and it seems better, so we decide we are going to try and follow their path. We are always looking for someone else to guide us in our decision making, or make decisions for us. In Robert Mulholland's book, Invitation to a Journey, he challenges us to do exactly the opposite of this. He proposes to us to the challenge of creating and following a path that is unique to us, and causes us to look inside ourselves for answers. He develops a very specific definition of discipleship as: a process of being conformed to the image of Christ for the sake of others. As we take a deeper look into the breakdown of this sentence, one will learn how to develop their own unique path to follow Christ. .
Mulholland breaks this definition down into four parts. This first of these parts is a process. Today's society is based largely around that of instant gratification. We live in a culture that wants immediate results. Due to this, we as Christians often think that God has to show us immediate results as well. If we pray to him for something, we expect that it will just be granted the next day and everything with be great. As Mulholland describes the Christian journey we learn that it is very much the opposite of this. Each and every day we are living we are involved in a life long process that is shaping our existence. We are either being molded into the image of Christ or we are being molded into the opposite of his image. The very word process, I believe is a great start to his definition, because it right off the bat introduces to us that we will not get instant gratification, or the "all of the sudden" realization that many of us believe should happen when trying to find Christ. .
The next part of the definition is being conformed. Being conformed means beginning your journey by turning into a person of compassion.