counting the wrong cost

"Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, saying, `This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.'
"Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.
Luke 14:28-33

I think that we as Christian ministers spend a good amount of our energy counting the wrong cost. We ask: "How will so and so take this?" "How will guests react to that?" "How will that make me feel?" "Which contingents of our congregation will get behind this?"

Who cares?

Who cares how people will take it, or how they will react, or how it will make me feel, who who will get behind it?

Normally I would listen to the rational, mature voice in my head that says something like: "Now Jesse, you and I both know that all factors have to be considered. How you go about leading is every bit as important as where you are going. You can't just run over people and expect them to follow you."

But lately, another voice is getting louder in my head. It is drowning out that way of reasoning. It is screaming at me:

"People aren't even sure if I am real or not anymore! They spend most of their lives in darkness and doubt! They are living boring lives that are completely on their own terms! They do not connect with me, do not hear me, do not sense me, and will not respond to my voice! Your rhyme and reason, your scripts and boundaries, and your fears and desires are drowning out my voice! You are watering down my voice to sound like your own!"

"I AM SCARY! Quit trying to make me so safe! I AM MYSTERIOUS! Quit trying to make me so plain! I AM NEAR! Quit striving to make me so accessible; I'm already working in such plain ways, if only you had the eyes to see."

"I DON'T DEPEND ON YOU. YOUR FAILURES ARE INSIGNIFICANT. THEY DON'T MEAN ANYTHING. YOUR SUCCESS IS DIRECTLY RELATED TO YOUR WILLINGNESS TO FAIL, because if failure is a risk in your endeavors, you are having to trust Me for something.

"You are a speck, and everything you try to do is small. I am big, and everything I do is life-changing. Your influence is nothing; I breathe everything into being, and hold everything together. My words have the power to create new realities. I can take anyone I want, whenever I want, wherever I want, and make them completely new by simply speaking."

"You are afraid. Your fear dictates everything you do, and holds you back from everything I want for you."

I want to count the cost of letting God be God.

I am afraid to do that.

But I am more afraid of not.