The true cost of sacrifice

The Hedgehog posts some wonderful poetry in War and its Cost.

Clearly, there is a true cost to true gain in all of life, not just in war.

In our natural-man state, we try to avoid cost. Or, we pay, but not in a way that actually costs us, in our natural-man state. We may pay to try to earn our own salvation, but what we spend comes right back to prosper our humanness, not our spiritual man. We are still spending on ourselves.

I know this is true of me. Every now and then I get glimpses of how much I really “spend” on myself, but it sure is hard to keep apprehension of that reality foremost in my mind. It’s so hard not to be driven by humanness and to keep everything from being self-serving, even if the outward form and actions are ostensibly “good.”

That's why I need God’s mercy, obviously.

In everyday dealings, if I am able to make a conscious effort (i.e., choose) to mentally and emotionally step back from something that bothers me, I'm able to assess the situation much more clearly. I'm able to take a course of action that serves others rather than myself, and to speak words that are helpful rather than hurtful. This is a different kind of cost than the cost of war, but both yield a good that far outweighs the cost.