As they were going along the road, someone said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go."  And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head."  To another he said, "Follow me." But he said, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father."  But Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God."  Another said, "I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home."  Jesus said to him, "No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God."

The interactions of these three with Jesus can be symbolic of different stages of the Christians walk with Christ.  At some point we will suffer because of our faith.  We will feel alone and without a friend.  It is at these times that Christ says to us: "Do you count the cost?"  To follow him means to not have a home in this world.  As it is with the teacher so it must be with the student.  How can we follow an itinerant preacher who is always on the move if we want to build a worldly home?  We are the cause of our own sufferings in trying to do both.

Like the Israelites in the desert after the liberation from Egypt looked back with longing on the meals they were able to enjoy while enslaved, the Christian often gazes longingly back on their old life in the world with nostalgia.  The deception is that ones prior worldly life was more comforting, pleasurable, and less traumatic than ones obedience to Christ.  Actually it probably was.  But it is not the way of the Christian, who is always on the move, never putting down tent stakes for long, ever striving forward to listen and obey more willingly and swiftly.

These passages are about wanting it both ways.  Wanting to follow Christ while having a comfortable home in the world.  Being called by Christ but reacting sluggishly because of family concerns.  Trying to follow Christ while keeping an eye on the world about us and it's fleeting pleasures and allurements.  These are but part of the sufferings awaiting Christians if we are not to be considered by Christ to be among the dead.