By Elder Lawrence E. Corbridge
Of the Seventy
Several years ago as I was thinking about the effect my call to serve as a mission president in Chile would have on our family and on my work, my thoughts were directed to Gethsemane, and a simple, clear impression came to me: "Don't count the cost." I realized then that in comparison with the immeasurable price paid in Gethsemane and on Calvary, whatever might be required of me was "small change." I felt ashamed to have been adding up the sum of our small sacrifices.
Whatever the Lord asks is little in comparison with what He has given and in light of what we receive through our small sacrifices—even redemption, revelation, power, joy, peace, knowledge, confidence, faith, hope, charity, dominions, eternal life, and all the Father has.
The Apostle Paul did not count the cost. He was relentless in his efforts to go "into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature" (1 Corinthians 2:2). He taught in the temple and in the streets, in homes and in synagogues, in royal courts and behind prison walls, in churches and in marketplaces, and in peril, sickness, and chains. He also taught before the Sanhedrin, kings, governors, angry mobs, and friends.
He was beaten, derided, whipped, stoned, shipwrecked, impoverished, imprisoned, forgotten, and ultimately killed because of his words. Words that others carefully measured and softly whispered from behind closed doors thundered forth from the mouth of Paul in the broad light of day—words that will echo to the end of time.