Count The Cost

"Believing is going to cost us all" (Fr. Mike Paciello)

Paul applauded the Thessalonians for maintaining their faith in the face of "much persecution" (1:6). As Western Christians, we rarely face persecution like our brothers and sisters in places like China, the Sudan and the Middle East.

And like so many things afforded us as citizens of one of the wealthiest countries in the world, we easily take for granted the freedom to practice what we believe.

The fact that we have little need to exercise our commitment to Christ by facing daily threats against our lives or those of our family can lead us to a kind of spiritual infirmity, much like what happens to our bodies when our muscles are left to atrophy.

A life of ease can leave the physical body weak and prone to injury. A life of spiritual ease can leave the heart, the spirit and the soul unguarded and vulnerable to attack. We do not tangibly feel at war, so we lay down our weapons, even as arrows whiz by our head.

Many of us are walking wounded of the war. And as we live in denial of the greater reality, our untreated wounds fester and ooze, leaving us debilitated and completely ineffective soldiers in God's army.

What makes for a good soldier? I believe he is always one who knows the war is vast and real, and that it cannot be wished or spoken away. I believe she seeks out weapons with which to fight and surrenders herself to the training of how to use them. I believe he lets go of any vainglorious idea that he can be the hero who conquers all alone, that somehow he has no need for the fellow soldier to his right and to his left in the heat of battle.

And I believe all good soldiers look in desperation to their Commander for direction, and they fervently obey, knowing it is the only hope for victory, for life.

What remains for a good soldier to do, actually what makes it possible for a good soldier to do these things, is to count the cost of enlistment. There can be no delusions of a quick, casualty-free engagement with the enemy that directly precedes uninterrupted bliss forever.

Surely for us the bliss is to come. It is the hope set before us, and it is to come for eternity . . . Praise the Lord! But, that is on the other side of Jordan.

On this side, the battles are intense and excruciatingly painful. The terrain is uncertain, and the enemy is cunning and evasive. There are victories, but the fighting is arduous and lengthy, and the mere ability to persevere can only be granted by the Divine.

And sometimes the deepest pain is experienced and the greatest losses are sustained from the "friendly fire" of those in our ranks. The very ones we expected and depended on, if need be, to throw our wracked body over their shoulder and carry us to the safety of base camp. The ones we determined to carry ourselves, rather than surrender them in their weakness to torture or death.

Yet, this is war. Those who've experienced worldly war firsthand paint an uncompromisingly gruesome picture. And there is nothing pretty or promising about our war, save but the promise that the victory has already been won! So, hope prevails. And our hearts can rejoice amidst gut-wrenching ache.

The cost is the way of the Cross. The sacrifice to a reality of war and wounds, of life found through loss and of persevering through pain. It is the way of Christ, the greatest soldier to ever live and the ultimate Commander-in-Chief. To follow Him will cost us all, and yet will also gain for us a glory we cannot yet comprehend.