Be prepared for what you ask for …

I know - the saying is normally "be careful what you ask for because you might get it."  In my case, it's "Be prepared for what you ask for because you might get it."  Actually - it's not really my case, so much as it is Jesus' case.  You may remember this passage from Luke -

Lk 14:28 “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? 29 For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, 30 saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’

It only makes sense.  Failure is bad enough.  Such a public failure is even more embarrassing. When we put this statement in context, we find that Jesus wasn't talking about building a physical building.  No - Jesus was talking about making a promise - a promise to God - and then not being willing to follow through on it. Here's the entire section -

The Cost of Being a Disciple

Lk 14:25 Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: 26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. 27 And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. Lk 14:28 “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? 29 For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, 30 saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’ Lk 14:31 “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? 32 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. 33 In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.

At this point, you may be wondering - why is this under the "peace beyond understanding" series? Keep reading - you will see why.  It's about having this amazing level of peace in circumstances under which you couldn't have imagined it was possible.  Seriously.  If you haven't read part one of the series, I encourage you to do so.  Like many people just seeing a doctor makes me nervous - and having a needle stuck in me is way beyond that.  Given that, being told by my doctor to go to the Emergency Room immediately should have been very scary.  I wasn't even a little nervous.  That's what the series is about - a peace from God that is way beyond understanding.  For this one segment of the series, it's about how I finally - after more than 50 years - felt that peace I had wanted ever since I was little.

We see three different examples here related to the cost of being a Disciple. One is about our willingness to leave behind everything and everyone - if we are asked to.  While it looks like Jesus is saying we need to hate our families - that can't be true.  If we're supposed to love even our enemies - how is it that Jesus could possibly want us to hate the very people who are most likely to be the ones who are closest and most loved to us? Luke 14:26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. 27 And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

Let's look at that word - "hate" - how it was used at the time and in the culture at that time -

88.198 μισέω: to dislike strongly, with the implication of aversion and hostility—‘to hate, to detest.’ οἱ δὲ πολῖται αὐτοῦ ἐμίσουν αὐτόν ‘and his fellow countrymen hated him’ Lk 19:14. Expressions for ‘hatred’ frequently involve idiomatic phrases, for example, ‘to kill in the heart’ or ‘to spit at someone in the heart.’  ¹Louw, J. P., & Nida, E. A. (1996). Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament: based on semantic domains (electronic ed. of the 2nd edition., Vol. 1, pp. 762–763). New York: United Bible Societies.

If you're not sure what an "idiomatic expression" is, here's a definition of "idiom" from dictionary.com to help -