Luke 14:28 (NKJV)
“For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it”
Have you ever been “in over your head” so to speak? Sometimes all I can do is shake my head at myself for landing in some of my predicaments. I plan as best I can. I analyze and investigate. Somehow I always miss something and it is usually not a minor thing.
I compare that to all the men and women who sacrificed so much to give us the freedom we have today. They knew going into that endeavor that they could potentially lose everything, even their lives, but they did it anyway. They considered freedom more valuable than anything else they could possibly gain. They hoped to come out of it alive but so many did not. So many men and women lost their lives that we might be free today.
Then I think of Christ. Have you noticed how many times in scripture it says that “He foreknew”? I used to think about that in present day events, that He already knows what we will do and how we will respond to Him. But this week I’ve been thinking about it from a different perspective. Of how, even at creation, when He was choosing to create this world and everything in it, He knew we would fall away from Him and He knew He would be the only one who could restore us. So even as He was creating us, He foreknew what it would take to redeem us to Himself, and He chose to create us anyway. I am amazed that, knowing the price, He was willing to pay it.
I hope and pray this Memorial Day weekend you will think on all of this and that the end result will be a heartfelt thankfulness and gratitude to God for those who gave their lives that we might have the freedoms we enjoy today, and to Jesus Christ, who loved us enough to give His life that we might have freedom in Him. He counted the cost and did it anyway. I am overwhelmingly grateful.