Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? Luke 14:27, 28

This year is the 75^th anniversary of Great Smokies, and last Wednesday a rededication ceremony was held as part of the observances. On September 2, 1940, President Franklin Roosevelt, speaking from the Rockefeller Monument at Newfound Gap on the Tennessee-North Carolina border, formally opened the park “for the permanent enjoyment of the people.”

As the park’s website notes, “becoming a national park wasn’t easy for the Great Smokies.” Older parks, located in the western United States, had been carved out of land already owned by the government, “in places where no one wanted to live anyway.”  But in this eastern region of the country, the land “was owned by hundreds of small farmers and a handful of large timber and paper companies [who] did not want to leave their family homesteads [or] abandon huge forests of timber, many miles of railroad track, extensive systems of logging equipment, and whole villages of employee housing.”

Others, though, had worked to set aside land in the Appalachian Mountains as either a national park or national forest for years. It wasn’t until the rising popularity of the automobile in the 1920s that the push for accessibility through the beautiful scenery forced the issue to a head.  President Calvin Coolidge signed a bill that provided for the establishment of the Great Smoky Mountains (and Shenandoah) National Parks.

There was one snag, though: 150,000 acres had to be purchased, and the government wasn’t allowed to do that. So the legislatures of Tennessee and North Carolina each contributed $2 million; private groups, individuals and even school children who pledged their pennies added another million. A final $5 million from the Laura Spellman Rockefeller Memorial Fund brought in the full amount needed.

Then came the hardest part—wresting the land from the original owners. As you might imagine, some people and companies were glad for the money (especially as the country was by then in the Depression), but many also were devasted or angry at having been forced out.

The Civilian Conservation Corps, an agency created by the federal government during the Depression to provide jobs for unemployed young men, handled much of the park’s early development. Today, you can still see the results of their work, notably in the park’s trails, campgrounds and lovely stone bridges. Because of its location, Great Smokies receives more visitors than any other national park.

Dedication to a cause involves a lot of persistence and effort, and can bring strife and hardship to everyone affected, even if the results are for the greater good. It comes with a cost, financially and otherwise. What’s easy to subscribe to in principle and theory can be very difficult when it comes to actually putting it into practice.  In the case of Great Smokies, while I’m grateful for the men and women with vision to create the park, I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to be one of those homeowners made to leave their home. Nor would I have enjoyed having to kick them out.

I think there’s a parallel to the Christian life. The benefits are great: I’m so glad I know my sins are forgiven, that I can call on God 24/7 to “receive mercy [and] find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16), and have a home waiting for me in heaven (John 14:2, 3). But sometimes I wonder—what if He asks me to give up too much?

Then I remind myself that God has Himself paid a high price for me (Revelation 5:9). I’ve committed to building my “tower” on that foundation, and I’m not about to quit now.

I have decided to follow Jesus,
I have decided to follow Jesus.
I have decided to follow Jesus—
No turning back, no turning back!

The world behind me, the cross before me,
The world behind me, the cross before me,
The world behind me, the cross before me—
No turning back, no turning back!