Am I avoiding the cost?
“Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’”
Around the time of my appointment to lead a project financing unit at a major international bank, the CEO gave a speech in which he mentioned project financing and cited Jesus’ foregoing words of warning when assessing whether or not to assume project completion risk. This is the risk that the project will not be completed because of insufficient funding.
There are two ways to mitigate this funding risk. One is to require a completion guarantee from the project’s sponsor thereby transferring all completion risk to them. Alternatively, one must ensure that there is an adequate committed pool of funding in place to finance not only budgeted cost but all contingencies including cost overruns and delays. Over the last several decades, many projects around the world have experienced massive overruns and delays, sometimes resulting in abandonment. Fortunately, none of these occurred on the projects for which my unit acted as lead project loan provider!
Rather, he was making the point that, if we choose to follow him, we must come to grips with the cost of that decision.
Of course, Jesus’ message didn’t relate directly to building towers. Rather, he was making the point that, if we choose to follow him, we must come to grips with the cost of that decision. If we don’t, our witness for him will cool when the prospect of incurring costs inevitably arises. Put differently, the principal way we can mitigate the risks associated with following Jesus is by not being open about our faith. Since Jesus told his followers that if they love him, they will obey him including his command to share their faith, disobedience implies that they don’t love him!
A few years ago, I met Nabeel Qureshi, a former Muslim who left Islam and committed his life to Jesus. In his book “Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus,” Nabeel recounts wrestling with anxiety after realizing that the Christian worldview is true but would be personally costly, since his close knit family would be devastated by his decision. Nonetheless, he ultimately became a passionate follower of Jesus and his paramount life purpose became to love Jesus by obeying him.
The reality is that everyone who is serious about surrendering their autonomy to Jesus and following him will pay something for this decision and should therefore recognize up front that there will be costs. And, as with any project, we must not only count the cost but also incur it. After all, a project only succeeds if costs are incurred. The cost of following Jesus could include loss of certain friendships, diversion of financial resources from spending on self to generous giving, career roadblocks, and rejection. While incurring the cost of discipleship, however, we can take comfort from Jesus’ promise of peace in the inevitable storms of life and of his presence in every situation in which we find ourselves.
What costs have you incurred for following Jesus? I would love to hear your stories. As you consider your commitment to Jesus, is he calling you into a deeper level of surrender?
Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash
