Shortly after my wife and I were engaged, we flew to visit my parents. We couldn’t reserve seats together, so we asked one of her seatmates to switch with me. “We just got engaged,” we explained. Her seatmates and the people in the rows behind her gave us knowing looks. “We remember those days,” they said wistfully. And then a number of them added, “They don’t last.” Kim and I were both surprised at their negativity. I thought, Not with that attitude, they don’t! But we held our tongues. They had let us sit together, after all. Count the Cost Whenever you’re about to embark on a new phase of life — getting married, starting a business, having children — you’ll find people who want to temper your enthusiasm with caution. They want to make sure that you’ve counted the cost. Something similar happened just before I first left the United States for the mission field: Are you sure you want to head down this road? Are you ready for the hardships that might lie ahead? Their concerns were well-motivated. It’s foolish to embark on any commitment without first counting the cost. And let’s face it: Missionary service is costly. Almost all missionaries struggle at points with isolation, distance from family and friends, and long years of language and culture acquisition. Many also undergo difficult bouts of sickness, rejection, or persecution. I’ve seen resilient people broken by tragedy or ground down by the slow accumulation of difficulties on the mission field. It is right, wise, and necessary to count the cost before embracing a life, or even just a short season, of serving as a missionary. Depend on Grace Counting the cost doesn’t mean that you expect to go and serve out of your own strength and capacity. Neither self-reliant nor self-sufficient, missionaries serve in dependence on the particular grace that God gives to them so that they may fulfill their callings. Paul insists that we minister only to the extent that God’s “grace given to us” enables us to do so (Romans 12:6). Paul uses the phrase grace given to refer specifically to God’s generous appointment and empowering of his people for ministry (see, for example, 1 Corinthians 3:10; Ephesians 3:8; 4:7). Such grace includes the Spirit’s power to do the work of ministry (see Acts 4:33; 6:8). It also includes the ability to cheerfully endure whatever hardships we encounter in ministry. When Paul tells the Romans to minister in accordance with the grace God gives, he mentions exercising mercy in accordance with the “cheerfulness” we’re given to do so (Romans 12:8). Elsewhere he describes “the grace of God . . . given” to the Macedonian churches that enabled them to give cheerfully for “the relief of the saints” even though they found themselves “in a severe test of affliction” (2 Corinthians 8:1–4). In fact, Paul doesn’t want people to give or to serve unless this cheerfulness is present (2 Corinthians 9:7). Depending on the grace given to serve cheerfully doesn’t mean we’ll never experience real anguish in fulfilling our calling. Even Paul despaired of life at one point (2 Corinthians 1:8)! But God’s grace enabled him, even in his hardest seasons, to persevere with joy (Philippians 2:17). So, counting the cost involves not only determining whether you love God enough to bear the difficulties of missionary service. It involves, additionally, asking whether God has given you the grace to maintain a cheerful hope in God despite difficulty. Can you still beg “earnestly for the favor of taking part” when you encounter severe tests of affliction (2 Corinthians 8:2, 4)? There are plenty of ministries and life situations for which God hasn’t given me grace. Pursuing those situations could distract me from God and lead to temptation (see, for example, 1 Corinthians 7:7–9). So, has God given you grace for joyful missionary service? Answering that question requires honest self-reflection and the careful assessment of your local church. Look to the Reward Those considering missions should count the cost, but they shouldn’t stop there. They should also consider the reward. In one of his most difficult seasons, Paul wrote that “this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Corinthians 4:17). Whatever hardships we suffer for Christ are temporary. The reward he promises lasts forever. Pursuing rewards can feel selfish to us, but it need not. It would have been inhuman to marry Kim and not be motivated by the reward of spending my life with her! Similarly, our eternal reward isn’t a private stack of gems to selfishly hoard. It’s eternal, blessed existence with the triune God. It also includes the fellowship of the saints, some of whom we get to help usher to eternal life. Paul calls the Thessalonians his “crown of boasting” at the return of the Lord Jesus (1 Thessalonians 2:19). He says that the Philippians are “my joy and crown” (Philippians 4:1). One of the greatest rewards — the crown of victory — that motivated Paul in his missionary service was the salvation of those he had labored to win. He wanted to spend eternity with them, sharing their blessedness as God’s glory reflects brightly in them. I recently spoke with a group of missionary candidates excited about the future. We spoke about the cost and what it means to have the grace to embark on overseas ministry. I hope they took that seriously. We also spoke about the reward. We talked about how it will forever outlast any difficulty incurred in reaching the lost and about how it infinitely outweighs any cost — as painful and heavy as it may be. Getting on the Plane Embarking on a life of missionary service is a bit like starting out in marriage. If someone on the airplane had asked me why I wanted to marry Kim even though marriage includes hardship, I would have said, “Sure, we might face difficulties, but they’re nothing next to the joys of being with her!” When the reward is great enough, we don’t fear the cost. I don’t want people to go to the mission field who haven’t been given the grace to be there. But I also don’t want to send people a similar message to the one the people on the airplane communicated to Kim and me, something along the lines of, “I remember how those exciting first steps to the field felt. It won’t last.” The excitement may come and go, but for those whom God has gifted, the reward — and even many parts of the journey to that reward — will be far better than those first few steps. And the reward will last forever.