The narrow road

I nearly finished (The Cost of) Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer while on holiday. An incredible, if occasionally frustrating book. Here is a particularly wonderful quote (formating mine):

The road of the disciples is narrow.

  It is easy to go past it;
  it is easy to miss it;
  it is easy to lose it,

even for those who have already walked it.
It is hard to find. The path is narrow indeed; there is a real danger of falling off on both sides.

  To be called to do the extraordinary,
    but not to see and know that one is doing it
      - that is a narrow road.

  To give witness to and to confess the truth of Jesus,
    but to love the enemy of his truth, who is his enemy and our enemy, with the unconditional love of Jesus Christ
      - that is a narrow road.

  To believe in Jesus' promise that those who follow shall possess the earth,
    but to encounter the enemy unarmed, to prefer suffering injustice to doing ill
      - that is a narrow road.

  To perceive other people as being weak and wrong
    but never to judge them;
  to proclaim the good news to them,
    but never to throw pearls before swine
      - that is a narrow road.

It is an unbearable road. The danger of falling off threatens every minute.

  As long as I recognize this road as one I am commanded to walk, and try to walk it in fear of myself, it is truly impossible.
    But if I see Jesus Christ walking ahead of me, step by step,
      then I will be protected on this path.

  If I look at the danger in what I am doing, if I look at the path
    instead of at him who is walking ahead of me,
      then my foot is already slipping.

He himself is the way.
He is the narrow road and the narrow gate.
The only thing that matters is finding him.

If we know that, then we will walk the narrow way to life through the narrow gate of the cross of Jesus Christ, then the narrowness of the way itself will reassure us. How could the road of the Son of God on earth, which we are to walk as citizens of two realms at the boundary between the world and the kingdom of heaven, be a wide one? The narrow way has to be the right way.

(p. 176, Discipleship)