Proven.

Today the pastor preached on these verses:
Luke 14:25–33 “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. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it?  Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.”

To clarify what this means, here is what is written of this place in the book of Matthew:
Matthew 10:37–39 “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

These verses always strikes me. I find it to be a hard passage, but not in the ways that I typically hear it explained.

To me, this is a passage that the Lord uses to encourage me and to lift me up. It is a place that brings to mind James 4:10 where it says, “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you.” What strikes me about this place in scripture is that every time I come to it, I know my failures and where I simply fall short; I come expecting to hear conviction or even condemnation...but instead, I hear, as I did in this morning's sermon, the gentle voice of God say to me,
“I asked for this, and you gave it to Me.
I took this from you, and still you praise Me.
I said 'No,' and you submitted to Me.
I told you to trust Me, and you endure pain as you wait on Me.
You are My disciple.
You are not perfect, but you are proven.”

And the hard emotional pains of the cost I have counted and found “worth it” wash over me, and they are always accompanied by a comfort that the God I live to glorify has been shown as worthy in my grittiest details of my heart and life.