One of my teenaged daughters looked at me last week and uttered these words: “Dad, you do realize you married way out of your league, don’t you?” I responded, “I think about it nearly every day.” But while it’s especially true for me, I don’t know many male exceptions. Every married man I know leveled up. How did we do it? How did we convince these women to spend the rest of their lives with us? I can tell you how I did it. I put my best foot forward. I tucked in my shirt, combed my hair, and brushed my teeth. I did it with flowers and notes and thoughtful dates. And it worked!
In contrast, consider how American Baptist missionary Adoniram Judson convinced Ann Haseltine to marry him in 1812. The following is an excerpt from the proposal letter he sent to her father.
“I have now to ask, whether you can consent to part with your daughter early next spring, to see her no more in this world; whether you can consent to her departure, and her subjection to the hardships and sufferings of a missionary life; whether you can consent to her exposure to the dangers of the ocean; to the fatal influence of the southern climate of India; to every kind of want and distress; to degradation, insult, persecution, and perhaps a violent death. Can you consent to all this, for the sake of him who left his heavenly home, and died for her and for you; for the sake of perishing, immortal souls; for the sake of Zion, and the glory of God? Can you consent to all this, in hope of soon meeting your daughter in the world of glory, with the crown of righteousness, brightened with the acclamations of praise which shall redound to her Saviour from heathens saved, through her means, from eternal woe and despair?”
Most astonishing of all, Ann’s father left the decision up to her, and Ann said yes! She would die at the age of thirty-six in Burma shortly after exhausting herself in caring for her husband during a seventeen-month prison term. She counted the cost and paid it.
But imagine with me that Adoniram had gone the typical route and wooed Ann with flowers and promises of marital bliss. Would that approach have led to a contented marriage? Would it have been honest? Would you blame any woman if she turned her back on such a cruel bait-and-switch trick?
Have you ever noticed that Jesus sometimes seems to try to talk people out of following him? Consider this passage from Luke 14:25-26: “Now great crowds accompanied 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.’”
What are you doing, Jesus? Great crowds are following you! They want to be your disciples! Why don’t you tell them you love them and have a wonderful plan for their lives? Why would you tell them they have to hate their families and their own lives? Why would you tell them to take up their crosses (v. 27)? Why would you tell them they have to renounce all their possessions (v. 33)? It doesn’t seem like a very effective strategy for starting a worldwide movement.
And yet, Jesus persists. He doesn’t want followers who haven’t counted the cost (v. 28). He refuses to make false promises. He does love us, and he does have a wonderful plan for our lives, but that plan may include intense suffering, martyrdom, a difficult marriage, or providing lifelong care for a child with special needs. It may mean you are called to forgive your husband’s murderer like Erika Kirk did. It may mean a life of poverty.
However it plays out in the unique circumstances of your life, the universal call applies equally to all. You must have no allegiance higher than your allegiance to Jesus, you must willingly sacrifice yourself in love for God and others, and you must joyfully acknowledge God’s ownership of all your possessions. Otherwise, as Jesus repeats three times, you cannot be his disciple (v. 26, 27, 33). Count the cost. Don’t try to join his movement until you do.
Two things can be true at once. The gospel is absolutely free, and yet the gospel costs us everything. It’s free because we can’t earn God’s grace. None of us deserve it. We only have hope of salvation through what Jesus did for us in his life, death, and resurrection. We live because he died and was raised.
But it costs us everything because in accepting his gift, we give ourselves to him. When we name Jesus as Lord, we forfeit the right to call our own shots, to determine our own destinies, to pursue our own dreams. We must count the cost because Jesus already did. We must count the cost because we won’t make it to the end unless we do.