Counting The Cost       When I was young my father told me to always count the cost.  It was good but wasted advice.  I didn't know how.  I had too little experience with life and to much pride to ask anyone who had seen the price tags.  Looking back, I'm fairly sure that if someone had given me a cost estimate, I would  have thought I could  get it for less.     I think this flaw is inherent in humanity,especially the young, and is  also the reason why the German philosopher Hegel, wrote, "The only thinh we've learned from history is that we have learned nothing from history."     I remember the oral interviews I took to become an animal keeper.  I was twenty-three years old.  A salty old veteran of hundreds, maybe thousands, of interviews looked at me over his rimless glasses and asked, "You've told us what you think will be the fun parts of working at the  zoo.  What  do you  think will be some of the difficulties or unpleasantries?"     Never having worked at a zoo, I didn't have a clue.  I had so romantic- tized zoo work that I couldn't think of anything bad.  I had to say something, so I blurted out, "I guess I'll go home with my clothes smelling bad sometimes."     He looked at me meditatively.  His expression said, "If you want to say more you can."  But I couldn't think of anything more, so he broke the awkward silence and the interview continued.     I worked at the zoo for seven years, and all the good things that I had anticipated were a part of the package.  But there were also costs......some very high costs.   Let me share a few.     There were assaults on my dignity.  The first animal to attack me was a small, very huffy male penquin that resented being chased out of a bunker onto exhibit.  I  was nearly kicked to death by an ostrich that was insulted when i failed to  respond to his romantic advances.  I was assigned to give a tetanus shot to a wild donkey that had stepped on a rusty nail.  When I administered the shot to his flank, he returned the favour by kicking me so hard that I almost went through  the barn door.  I can still feel his "shot" on rainy days.     I was inches from being gored to death by a kudu, a large African antelope.  He had mistaken me for a rival suitor.  Later this same seven-hundred pound herd  bull did plunge his thirty-six-inch horns through another keeper's body.  I was nipped by a rabid raccoon and had to undergo the Pasteur treatment (3 percent  of the patients who undergo the Pasteur treatment die from it).  I was  consistently exposed to zoonosis, diseases transmissible from animals to man,  many of which could prove to be fatal.     When I spoke out on behalf of the animals because of poor conditions, I was sent to the zoo's version of Siberia.  The section to which I was assigned had more  work than a man could do well in eight hours, and most men who were sent there  had quit with broken spirits.  I discovered that I was allergic to dust and hay,  and this section had more of both than any other section in the zoo.  I developed chronic bronchitis and drifted into pneumonia on several occassions.     Oh, yes-and there were days when my clothes did smell bad, even terrible.     This is a very partial list, but I think you get the idea.  I know something now for sure that was theoretical twenty years ago when I was hoping to work at a zoo.  Anything really valuable has a price tag.  M. Scott Peck's opening words in The Road Less Traveled were so true.     Life is difficult.  This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths.  It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it.  Once we truly  know that life is difficult-once we truly understand and accept it-then life is no longer difficult.  Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.     Life at it's best will cost us someting, and life lived at it's best is lived for Jesus Christ.  Jesus knows the price tag because He paid the price.  Let's remember what He said:     Mark 8:34-37   .....If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.  For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it; and whoever  loses his life for My sake and the gospel's shall save it.  For what does it profit  a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?     Paul spoke plainly when he wrote to the Philippians:   Philippians 1:29   For to you it has been granted for Christ's sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake.     So as I read it, the cost is dying to ourselves and believing and being willing to suffer.  Well, it's the least we can do for Him.  He's done it for us.  And we  didn't even deserve it.     Think about these questions: What is my faith costing me? How am I demonstrating the value of my Lord, my family, and my  church to the world around me? And why did the Lord think I was worth the price He paid for me?     A my father said, "You should always count the cost." I know what you mean now, Dad.  I really do.     Author ~ Gary Richmond         All graphics © 1998 - 2001 Until Then Graphics All right reserved. All other copyrights belong to their respective holders. This background set made and copyrighted by Unti lThen Graphics. It was made especially for "Reflections",  so please do not take any of the graphics or set.  Thank you for respecting the copyright laws.