In The Storms of Life

“To follow Him is to sail where He leads, not where the waters are calm.”

There is a verse Jesus speaks that sounds practical on the surface—almost ordinary.

He talks about a man who wants to build a tower.

Before laying the first stone, the man sits down and counts the cost (Luke 14:28).

Jesus isn’t giving construction advice.

He is teaching about discipleship.

Following Him was never meant to be impulsive or sentimental.

It was never meant to be entered lightly, out of emotion alone, or for what it might temporarily provide.

Jesus pauses the crowd and says, in effect:

Look ahead. Decide with clarity.

Because once you say yes, everything changes.

Salvation is a gift.

But obedience will cost you something.

Sometimes it costs reputation.

Sometimes relationships.

Sometimes comfort, certainty, or safety.

Sometimes it costs the very life you thought you were going to have.

Jesus never hid that.

He said plainly:

“Whoever does not carry his cross and follow Me cannot be My disciple.” (Luke 14:27)

Not may not.

Cannot.

And yet He does not say this to frighten us away.

He says it to call us into honesty.

Because there is a kind of faith that wants resurrection without crucifixion.

A belief that loves heaven but resists surrender on earth.

Counting the cost is not about earning salvation.

It is about understanding what obedience will require once salvation has already been given.

When a person truly sees the Kingdom—really sees it—everything else looks different.

Jesus said the Kingdom is like a treasure hidden in a field.

The man who found it sold everything he had to buy that field (Matthew 13:44).

Not out of grief.

Out of joy.

Still, choosing does not make the cost disappear.

Some obediences stretch across years.

Some sufferings return in new forms long after we believed they were finished.

This is where faith stops being abstract.

This is where testimony is forged.

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Peter — The Cost of Being Chosen

Peter was not polished.

He was a fisherman.

Impulsive.

Quick-tempered.

Deeply emotional.

And yet Jesus said to him:

“Follow Me, and I will make you a fisher of men.” (Matthew 4:19)

Peter left his nets.

He followed.

But following did not make him flawless.

Peter walked on water—then doubted. (Matthew 14:29–31)

He swore loyalty—then denied Jesus three times. (Luke 22:54–62)

He spoke boldly—then spoke wrongly.

And still, Jesus chose him.

After the resurrection, Jesus asked him three times:

“Do you love Me?” (John 21:15–17)

Not to shame him.

To restore him.

Peter’s story shows us this:

God does not call the flawless.

He calls the willing.

And then He shapes them through the cost of obedience.

Peter’s failures did not disqualify him.

They prepared him.

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Jonah — The Cost of Running

Jonah already knew God.

He was a prophet.

When God told him to go to Nineveh, Jonah ran the opposite way (Jonah 1:3).

Not because he doubted God’s power—

but because he knew God was merciful.

He did not want mercy for those people.

So he fled.

A storm came.

A ship trembled.

A sea raged.

Jonah was thrown overboard, and the sea became calm (Jonah 1:15).

Then God appointed a great fish to swallow him (Jonah 1:17).

Three days in darkness.

Three days with nothing but his thoughts and God’s presence.

There, Jonah repented.

There, he remembered.

God released him.

And gave the same command again.

This time Jonah obeyed.

Nineveh repented.

Mercy fell.

And Jonah struggled with it.

Because sometimes the cost of obedience

is letting God be kinder than we are.

Jonah teaches us:

You can run from the assignment,

but not from the God who gave it.

The cost of running is heavier

than the cost of obeying.

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And Then… There Are Stories Still Being Written

There are moments when obedience intersects with loss,

with pain,

with waiting that lingers longer than expected.

There are lives where the cost is not theoretical.

It is lived.

It is felt in the body and the soul.

Some testimonies wait, not because they are small,

but because they are holy.

Some stories carry miracles

and scars in the same breath.

And when the time comes,

they do not glorify suffering—

they glorify the God who kept His word through it.

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Testimony — A Glimpse, Not the Whole

Most of  my life when the cost of obedience became deeply personal.

I had heard the Lord warn me that something difficult was coming. He spoke my name and asked me to trust Him — not for escape, but for His presence through it.

At the time, I did not fully understand what that trust would require.

I had been called to leave a place I loved, a work that looked good and meaningful in my own eyes. But I hesitated. I listened to human voices instead of the Lord’s timing.

And in that hesitation came a turning point that changed my life completely.

What followed was not small.

It was not symbolic.

It touched every part of my life — my body, my memory, my future, and my understanding of surrender.

There were moments where my very life hung in the balance.

Moments where only God’s mercy could carry me through.

Moments where miracle after miracle whispered that He had not left me.

I learned then that counting the cost is not about fear.

It is about trust.

And sometimes the greatest surrender is not giving something up —

it is saying,

“Your will be done, my God, even when I do not understand.”

The full story is one I share carefully, because it is a whisper story — one that belongs to God’s timing.

But I can say this:

He kept His word.

He stayed beside me.

And what He allowed was never without purpose.

For now, I am still learning what it means to trust without seeing the whole journey.

The Word of God reminds us:

“Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.

In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”

(Proverbs 3:5–6)

And again:

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

(Isaiah 55:8–9)

Some stories are still being written.

Some testimonies are still becoming.

And sometimes obedience means walking forward before you understand why.

The rest of this story belongs to that kind of trust.

In my next post fallowing this one will be my testamony of counting the cost

The knowing that obediance in surender will change a life and not just your own.

From my quiet heart to yours may you hear His whisper…
— Spring Lynn Booth

— Spring Lynn Booth

http://whispers-in-the-quiet.org

Email: Hopeministries2010@yahoo.com

FB Page: A Box of Sox Ministry

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