Lewis says we take our self as a starting point - with the good and not-so-good desires - and hope that at the end of the day we do enough good to leave some room for doing what we want to do. Says Lewis, "We are very like an honest man paying his taxes. He pays them all right, but he does hope that there will be enough left over for him to live on. Because we are still taking out natural self as a starting point."

The Christian way is different, Christ says, "Give me All. I don't want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don't want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down. Hand over the natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked - the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours.

"Is there anyone here who, planning to build a new house, doesn't first sit down and figure the cost so you'll know if you can complete it? If you only get the foundation laid and then run out of money, you're going to look pretty foolish. Everyone passing by will poke fun at you: "He started something he couldn't finish.' "Or can you imagine a king going into battle against another king without first deciding whether it is possible with his ten thousand troops to face the twenty thousand troops of the other? And if he decides he can't, won't he send an emissary and work out a truce? "Simply put, if you're not willing to take what is dearest to you, whether plans or people, and kiss it good-bye, you can't be my disciple. Luke 14:28-33 (MSG)

Pondering this passage further, some thoughts occurred to me:
We wonder why the "world" so easily mocks, ridicules, insults, and laughs at Christians. Maybe we haven't figured out the cost! Jesus said this was going to happen. If we just said the sinner's prayer, and laid a few Sunday school foundation lessons, of course the world should be laughing, we haven't finished what we started to build. We didn't consider the cost.

Don't confuse persecution on behalf of Christ for ignorance in our inability to count the cost.

What a strategy of the enemy to have us under estimate the cost!

The Call to Discipleship
In his book The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer says:

The call goes forth, and is at once followed by the response of obedience. It displays not the slightest interest in the psychological reason for a man's religious decisions. And why? For the simple reason that the cause behind the immediate following of call by response is Jesus Christ Himself.

Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ. It remains an abstract idea, a myth which has a place for the Fatherhood of God, but omits Christ as the living Son. There is trust in God, but no following of Christ.

He wants to follow, but feels obliged to insist on his own terms to the level of human understanding. The disciple places himself at the Master's disposal, but at the same time retains the right to dictate his own terms. But then discipleship is no longer discipleship, but a program of our own to be arranged to suit ourselves, and to be judged in accordance with the standards of rational ethic.

If we would follow Jesus we must take certain definite steps. The first step, which follows the call, cuts the disciple off from his previous existence. The first step places the disciple in the situation where faith is possible. If he refuses to follow and stays behind, he does not learn how to believe.

But How?
Lewis proposes listening to "that other voice":

That is why the real problem of the Christian life comes where people do not usually look for it. It comes the very moment you wake up each morning. All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists simply of shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in. And so on, all day. Standing back from all your natural fussings and frettings; coming in out of the wind.

The hard part comes in wanting to be perfect at this process. We can only do for moments at first. Lewis reminds us that Christ meant it when He said we are to be perfect, but the reality is that the "full treatment" as Lewis calls it, is a process. "It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learnt o fly while remaining an egg." Lewis says we're like eggs, and that we better hatch or go bad - we can't just stay an ordinary egg forever.

Getting Rhetorical
What are some items I did not consider in the original cost?

What are some ways to shove the wild animals back, and "listen to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in?"