You Don’t Get Called Without Cost

We don’t just end up in rooms like this by accident.

Tampa in early May has a way of waking you up the moment you step outside. The air is thick, warm, alive. It clings a little, like it’s trying to get your attention. Craig and I made our way through the airport, into the city, into this weekend, and there’s always that subtle shift that happens. Nothing dramatic nor loud. Just enough to feel it in your body.

Like something just moved.

And whether we admit it or not, we know when something is asking more of us.

People love to talk about calling. We love the words, purpose, impact, legacy. They sound expansive. They sound meaningful. They sound like something we’d be proud to step into. But what we don’t always talk about is what comes attached to it. The part that doesn’t get the highlight reel.

Because calling isn’t light.

It’s not tidy. It’s not convenient. And it doesn’t politely fit into the version of life we’ve built around comfort.

That’s the part we tend to negotiate with.

We’ll say we want more, we’ll pray for more, we’ll even position ourselves around more. We’ll book the trip, show up to the event, sit in the room, nod our heads, take notes. But there’s often a quieter conversation happening underneath all of that.

Am I actually willing to become the person this requires?

That’s where it gets real.

Because it’s one thing to want the outcome. It’s another thing entirely to accept the cost of carrying it.

And if we’re being honest, we can feel when we’re trying to have one without the other.

It shows up in small ways. A hesitation. A pull to stay quiet when something in us says speak. A tendency to observe instead of engage. A subtle holding back that doesn’t look like fear on the surface, but feels like it just beneath it.

We don’t always call it avoidance.

Sometimes we call it timing.

Sometimes we call it discernment.

Or sometimes we call it “just being wise.”

But deep down, we usually know the difference.

This is where the cost begins to show itself. Not in some grand, dramatic sacrifice all at once, but in the accumulation of small, inconvenient choices. The decision to lean in when it would be easier to stay neutral. Or perhaps to move before everything feels perfectly clear. And especially the decision to stop negotiating with what we already know we’re being asked to do.

Calling lives there.

Not in the idea of it, but in the movement toward it.

I kept thinking about something John Maxwell says, especially knowing he’s one of the speakers here this weekend. “Growth demands a temporary surrender of security.” That line lands differently when you’re actually living inside it. Temporary surrender. Not loss. Not chaos. Just a release of what feels stable in order to make room for what’s trying to grow.

We don’t always love that trade, do we?

Security feels good. Predictable feels safe. Familiar feels manageable. But none of those things expand us. They maintain us.

And if we’re being real for a second, most of us aren’t looking to be maintained. We’re looking to grow.

Growth just doesn’t happen without disruption.

It asks us to let go of something we’ve been leaning on. A pattern, a mindset, a version of ourselves that has kept us comfortable but has also kept us contained. We can’t carry both. We don’t get to step fully into what’s next while clinging tightly to what has been.

So something has to be laid down.

Scripture doesn’t dance around this. “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). Daily. That word matters. This isn’t a one-time decision. It’s not a single moment of courage that carries us forward forever. It’s a rhythm. A repeated choosing. A quiet, consistent alignment.

I’m sure if you think about it for a moment that you can feel how often you’ve invited into that choice.

Spaces like this don’t create something new in us. They reveal what’s already there. They amplify it. They make it harder to ignore. Being in the room doesn’t automatically change us. It exposes us.

Being in the room is not the same as being ready in the room.

We’ve all felt that before. Sitting somewhere, listening, taking it in, and at the same time sensing the gap. The space between what we’re hearing and how we’re actually living. That gap isn’t something to be ashamed of. It’s something to be aware of.

Because awareness gives us a choice.

We can close the gap, or we can continue to live around it.

That’s where the responsibility comes back to us. Not in a heavy, burdensome way, but in an honest, raw and holy one. We don’t get called into something meaningful without being asked to rise to meet it.

There’s a cost.

Not because something is being taken from us unfairly, but because something is being built within us intentionally. Something that requires more of us than we’ve been used to giving. More presence. More discipline. More willingness to move when everything in us would prefer to stay still.

We can feel that tension.

We can feel the pull between who we’ve been and who we’re being asked to become.

And that’s the moment that matters.

Not the event. Not the environment. Not even the opportunity.

The moment where we decide whether we’re going to step into that pull or step back from it.

Saying we want more and becoming someone who can hold more are not the same thing.

One is language.

The other is transformation.

So as we move through this weekend, through the conversations, the energy, the moments that challenge and stretch us, we don’t just sit back and consume. We engage. We pay attention. We notice where we feel the nudge to grow, to shift, to let go of something that no longer fits.

That’s where the real work is.

Not in what we hear, but in what we do with it.

We already know, at least in part, what this requires.

It’s going to cost us.

And maybe the question isn’t whether we’re ready to say yes to the calling.

Maybe the question is whether we’re ready to say yes to the cost that comes with it.

Where are you saying you want more… but hesitating when it starts to require more of you?

Drop it below. No perfect answers — just real ones.

And if this hit you, share it with someone who’s been feeling that same pull.

As always loving and praying for you and our world,

Rene Schooler

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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Photo credit: Irina Iriser On Unsplash