Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
~ Matthew 10:39

Whenever any talk bubbles up about losing one’s life for someone else, most everyone will agree that the person who has done this is the noblest of beings. We read stories in the news in the news every once in a while that remind us of the greatness of (some) humanity: the coach who gives up a kidney for one of his players, the pedestrian who is severely hurt when pushing a child out of oncoming traffic, the teacher who loses his life while trying to funnel his students to safety when his school is under siege by armed miscreants. I hear about people who make such sacrifices, and I am wowed by their selflessness. Certainly Jesus is commending these people in this verse: take the big hits for another, or for me, and you will find your life. I’d like to be one of those guys if a situation called for it, I think.

But I also stop and pause at the idea of having to die to find my life. Sure, Jesus- you taught us that. You actually did that. I’d like to say I can do that to, but I am not sure.

In reality, I know I cling so tightly to my life day by day that if a circumstance developed asking for action that might cost me much, I am not sure I would do anything.  I am not sure that my heart would be trained to act because of my daily perspective on living.  And in reality, I think this is what Jesus is teaching us about here: possessing a perspective on life that allows us to be prepared daily to lose our lives.

Because I have been dealing with a lot of turmoil about a broken friendship, I have been encouraged by a number of close friends to just let things go.  But I have this heart in me that hates to let go of anything that I place some value on.  I’ll keep receipts for special (and we’re not talking significantly expensive) purchases I’ve made on vacations.  A piece of scrap paper that contains a cryptic note I made one day trying to capture some blinding insight I’ve long since forgotten.  Holey shirts, just because I used to love wearing them, even though they belong in a fire somewhere now.  Thank you notes from people I one time vaguely knew but today could not pick out of a line up.  I keep all of these things, because I think that they have special value to me today because they also did at some other time in my life.  I hate letting things I love go.  Especially when they are a person.

Losing what’s important to you usually has some pain associated with it.

Well, for some reason I started thinking about this verse last night, and I realized: there is a time when you lose your life, and you aren’t even aware of it, and it brings you life.  It’s when we lose ourselves in loving another.

My guess is you parents know what this like quite a bit.  You have brought this kid home who requires everything from you, and you quickly forget about “me” time and scheduled breaks and the freedoms you had without child-rearing responsibilities.  You forgot about those things because your focus became all about that child.  You loved the child, and so you did what you could to nurture and protect and foster the child.  You loved the child- and you forgot yourself.

“You want to find your life?  Make your life about forgetting yourself by serving others. Give your life away to make others better, stronger, wiser, and more whole.  As you do this, you’ll realize that your life is becoming better, stronger, wiser, and more whole.  That’s part of the deal in loving.”

Acts of love and service inevitably cost us all something at their outset.  But the return on investment we get from these contributions, while they so often seeming insignificant, comes in the form of a changing heart that is constantly wading deeper into the river, and marrow, of life.