I can’t count the times that I have had to do something over because it didn’t work out the first time. In the early years of my life I was a building contractor. I had learned that trade while still in high school and then worked at it while in college.

When Glenda and I were married, I had started my own contracting company and like most start-ups, it could be hard going at times. One of my biggest mistakes was that I felt I needed to do every job that came along. That is ambitious, but in order to get every job that came along, I would bid the job too low. The money was so tight that if I made a mistake there were no extra funds to pay for doing it over. I just had to grit my teeth, suck it up, and work until I had fixed the mistake. This was a bitter pill to swallow.

Unfortunately, this is the way many people run their life. I had let my desire totally cloud my reasoning. I would have been so much better off had I accurately counted the cost and bid accordingly. If I would have done that, I would not have had to experience the stress that I had brought on myself. I was like a child that is given a couple of dollars and they can’t wait to spend it on candy because that is the desire they have at that very moment.

How many times have we as adults spent a large amount of time and money on the desire we have at that moment? Jesus addressed this tendency in Luke 14:28-30.

“For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it lest, after he has laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.”

Life has a lot of unknown twist and turns that need to be considered and we must count the cost of our decisions because those decisions have consequences. Jesus also said there is a way to get help with those decisions.

John 16:13; “However when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth.”

These are the answers we are finding at the Gathering Place every Wednesday evening at 7 and Sunday morning at 9:30 and 10:30. Come and join us.