Greater things than these

I love reading the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John because it helps me get to the basics of why I have committed to living my life for Jesus. The miracles, the healings, the promise of real life - not an easier life, but a better one - life to the full.
What strikes me are the instances when Jesus invites ordinary men to follow him. The incredible thing is not the invitation, but the immediate response of each man to literally drop what he was doing and actually follow Him. These men left their jobs, families and everything normal to go where Jesus went and see what he saw and do what He did.
At the end of John's gospel he writes, "Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name... Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written."
Can you imagine the events that didn't make it into the Bible? There are a few accounts of times when people decided it was too difficult and did walk out on Jesus, but I wonder how many others said to Jesus, "No thanks, I'm good here fishing in this same watering hole I've been to every day for 10 years," or, "Oh maybe, let me check my schedule."
Jesus doesn't work that way. Life with him isn't scheduled or planned. We don't operate on our own accord and we don't always get to do what we want to do. We get to do "even greater things" than those Jesus did. What?
How could we possibly do anything greater than Jesus? That's exactly what he said, according to John, shortly before his death when he promised to send the Holy Spirit to live not just with us but in us. Jesus said having the Spirit is even better than having him on earth, referring to the Spirit of Truth as an advocate to help us and be with us forever, to teach us and remind us of everything Jesus said (John 14).
Aside from the most incredible miracle of taking on the sins of the world, being crucified in our place and raising from the dead, we don't even know the depths of the amazing things Jesus did because the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written to account for them.