They had no idea how much it would cost them. When they began to follow Jesus they actually thought they would physically detain the Romans and Jesus would be crowned king physically in their day. They did not understand when they began that some would be stoned or hung upside down on a cross.
But at a certain point they had come too far. There was no going back.
The funny thing about the anon journey is that its taken so many unexpected turns. I don't think any of us foresaw the precipice of 2021 but that when we look back that has been part of the humbling experience. The journey God takes us on does something within us. If you told a young me what God would put me through when I began to follow would have I still done it? God sometimes has to ease us into our cross. He gives us bread crumbs and we follow inch by inch until we learn to not just carry our cross but embrace it. Surrendered our will to God because He's won us over. And then you truly understand that there's no going back because the old you is dead and buried and there is no where to go back. And that was part of the plan all along. God transforming His people.
I can't imagine starting this journey a few years back with the knowledge that Trump would "LOSE" the election in 2020, a faux president regime would be installed in 2021, we would all be banned from Twitter and Facebook and lose all freedom of speech in the public square, patriots would rally on Jan 6th and then end up in DC prison solitary confinement and torture for a year without trial for the crime of selfies in the Capitol, world's leading doctors and vaccinologists would warn against the COVID vax and get deplatformed everywhere, our government would march toward totalitarian rule and the masses would succumb to psychosis, and thus we would be thrown into a world of chaos and storm the likes of which we could never have dreamed possible. But here we are. We survived. It was necessary. The best is yet to come.