Think About What that Will Cost

So Samuel told all the words of the LORD to the people who were asking for a king from him. 1 Samuel 8:10

A couple of years ago, my wife and I bought a property with the intention of building on it. We had, in our mind, a budget that we thought we could afford. Since then, we’ve learned what most people who’ve built have learned – That the cost you imagine at the beginning of the project is very different than the cost at the end of the project. While I’m ecstatic with our house (it’s fantastic), if we had to do it all over again, knowing the full cost, I think we’d have done it differently, or perhaps not at all. We’d been warned. We had friends who’ve built who told us that we (like everyone else who builds) would blow way past our original budget. Unwisely, we ignored their counsel and plowed forward, hoping that we would be the exception. Don’t get me wrong. I’m profoundly thankful to have a new home – no one wants to hear a doctor complain about building a new house – I’m just using our building process to illustrate the consequences of ignoring the costs prior to making a decision.

Though it didn’t involve building a house, this is similar to the situation in which the Israelites found themselves in today’s passage. In the story, God’s people demanded a king. God intended for his people to follow him as king, but they demanded a human king. God, speaking through his prophet Samuel, warned his people exactly what a king would cost them. A king, he said, would take their sons, their daughters, their property, their crops, and their livestock. A king will cost you dearly. Despite God’s warning, the Israelites plowed forward. We want a king!

I’d like to think that if God warned me of terrible consequences, trying to deter me from a specific decision, that I’d listen. Unfortunately, I’ve been in exactly that position and have plowed forward anyway. At my last relapse, I heard God telling me that it was going to end in disaster. But I want it. That was my only argument, and, ignoring God’s warning, I followed my will instead of his. God was right of course. It did lead to disaster and, in that disaster, I looked back, desperately wishing I’d have listened to God and considered the cost.

Recovery now, means just that – Consider the cost. Yes, I want it now, but where will this decision take me. Will it lead me to new life in God? Or will it lead me closer to the disaster of the old life? I don’t do it perfectly, but daily, God is teaching me to consider the cost of every decision so that I make healthy choices by seeking his will, not mine.