On our journey home from swimming training, we listened intently to radio commentary of Wimbledon. It was the final few games of a thrilling match and we had a winner before we got home – how exciting!
Then came the questions. The children were eager to find out how, exactly they could one day play at Wimbledon – the greatest stage in the world of tennis? What would it take?
Great questions and it all comes down to the cost.
- The financial cost – it costs to belong to a club
- The time cost – if you want to be really good, you have to commit to many hours of training
- The physical, emotional and mental cost
- The cost to the whole family
- The sacrifices that would need to be made in terms of missing out on going out with friends so you can practice. You would have to have a strict diet in order to gain the most from your body – no junk food.
And even then, when you’ve given your all, there’s no guarantee that you’ll be one of the very few to make it onto the ATP Tour and play tennis for a living.
“So, can I start playing tennis at a club mommy?” My son asks, undeterred. “No” I say, “You can focus on your swimming.”
Although children may change their mind about what they want to do from one day to the next, it is important for us all to count the cost when considering a life change, aiming for a goal or working towards a dream.
Seeing people succeed on the global stage is inspiring and it may motivate you to dust off your tennis racquet and start playing again – which is great – but, what we seldom consider are the sacrifices those world-class players have had to make to get to where they are.
Don’t abandon your dreams before you begin working towards them, just seriously consider the cost of following your dreams before you go out and buy a new racquet, shoes, outfit and pay for tennis coaching lessons for a year in advance.
The Bible challenges us to count the cost of following in the footsteps of Jesus – of being His disciple. Large crowds followed Jesus. They were captivated by Him, His teachings and the miracles He performed, but He urged them to consider what it would take to walk the narrow road of being a Christ-follower and a true disciple. By comparison, you would have to hate everyone else – your father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters – yes, even your own life.
Jesus also said, “If you do not carry your own cross and follow me, you cannot be my disciple”. In His day, a cross wasn’t just a symbol of pain and suffering; it was a symbol of death. What Jesus was saying is that if you choose to be a disciple of Jesus, you must put to death your own plans and desires, and turn your life over to Him and do His will every day.
Jesus doesn’t only call us to believe that He existed, or even that He can save us from eternal separation from God. He calls us to commit our whole lives to Him – to trust Him alone for our salvation, and then to follow Him as His disciples.
The challenge then, in our everyday hopes and dreams and in the choice as to whether or not we will be true disciples of Jesus Christ:
“don’t begin until you count the cost. For who would begin construction of a building without first calculating the cost to see if there is enough money to finish it? Otherwise, you might complete only the foundation before running out of money, and then everyone would laugh at you. They would say, ‘There’s the person who started that building and couldn’t afford to finish it!’
“Or what king would go to war against another king without first sitting down with his counselors to discuss whether his army of 10,000 could defeat the 20,000 soldiers marching against him? And if he can’t, he will send a delegation to discuss terms of peace while the enemy is still far away. So you cannot become my disciple without giving up everything you own” – Luke 14:25-33
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