This is not about hating people. This is about taking an inventory of your gifts and challenges so you know whether or not you are prepared to embark on the journey God has laid out for you. God's work can be hard. Maybe the work God has called you to do requires patience and inner strength. Maybe it requires time and money. Maybe it requires humility or self-awareness. Before you accept the challenge, it might be prudent to take a self-inventory. Do you have what you need? Are you prepared for the task? Maybe you need to do some work before you have all that you need. What could you do to move yourself closer to doing God's work?

Incidentally, you will never be completely prepared for every contingency. At some point you have to accept that you're as ready as you can be, and jump in despite the bumps and bruises that you will get on the journey. It's ok. Just go. You'll get what you need when you need it.

Text:

Now large crowds were traveling with him; and he turned and said to them, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand? If he cannot, then, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for the terms of peace. So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions. “Salt is good; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; they throw it away. Let anyone with ears to hear listen!”