31st Day of Lent: Count the Cost

June and I are going on vacation in May, and we spent a fair amount of time figuring out how much it would cost. Why? Because it would suck to be 1/2 way through the trip and realize this trip should have been one week instead of two. No one wants to figure out what is the Czech Republic's equivalent of Easy Mac.

Food is where the cuts happen when you don't have enough money on a trip. Lots of things (flight, hotel, tours) are all prepaid, so at the point where you're running out of money...your food budget gets tight. And for me that would be the saddest thing because I believe there is no cost too great for an amazing meal. June, for the most part, agrees but she has a limit. Not me! Do you have a tasting menu? I want it. Wine pairings? Yes, please! June once talked me out of a caviar tasting because (admittedly) I had no idea what constituted good caviar. Looking back, I regret this a little.

It's not that I'm broke, but I do have to travel with a plan. With a budget. With an idea of what this is going to cost me. We have to make sure the trip is something we can afford. That way, whatever euro-denominated menu prices come flying my way, I know without a doubt:

I can pay.

It seems so basic, so natural, that I was surprised to see this concept in scripture:

 Now large crowds were going along with Him; and He turned and said to them, “If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with ten thousand men to encounter the one coming against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.“Therefore, salt is good; but if even salt has become tasteless, with what will it be seasoned? It is useless either for the soil or for the manure pile; it is thrown out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

 - Luke 14:25 - 35
 

This scripture starts out with two disqualifications for discipleship:

Disqualification #1: You don't hate your family and your very life
Disqualification #2: You don't carry a cross

Time out. I feel like I've spent weeks saying you have to love people with a supernatural love, and now Jesus is saying I have to hate people? And what does it mean to carry a cross?

--PAUSE--You know what we almost never get to read in the scriptures? The aftermath of the stuff Jesus says. The crowd is just flowing along after Jesus, and He turns around and say this? I feel like the bible should have little shock-faced emoticons in it. Or drawings of people walking away slowly, muttering "I guess there's no free bread and fish today..."--UNPAUSE--

This is actually a difficult scripture to comment on. Overall, we know what this means: everything you love is subordinate to Christ. Christ wants our full devotion.

But why couldn't He just say that?! Why use this strong language? Because we can't conceptual what "full devotion" costs. And you don't know if you can pay if you don't know the costs. So these were the costs:

• Can you give up on everyone who's ever known you and created your identity as somebody's son, brother, husband, etc.? And find your identity only in Christ? Can you give up your future plans and find your future in the will of God? 
• Can you live as someone who is dead to this world? Carrying the cross is not a symbol of pain and suffering (though that happens on a cross). But the cross is where you die. And in this sense, you die following Christ. 

And you would be following Christ's example:

...who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 

 - Philippians 2:6-8

 So...can you pay the costs? 

That's a doozie. When you put it like that, it sounds really, really hard. Why does it sound hard? Because I have an only partially transformed mind. But I do believe that ultimately, I'll be able to pay. This declaration doesn't make me want to give up.

I wonder how many people, when they heard Jesus say this, turned around? I wonder how many people thought: "This guy is the real deal" and kept going? But that separation of people: people who were just going along vs. followers wasn't really based on who had the willpower and the fortitude to walk out on their families and carry crosses to their death. It was (as usual) about faith. Who had enough faith to stay on this journey with Christ? Who had enough faith to be empowered to finish what they started?

That's why I know...even though I'm short on funds now:

I can pay.