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Losing Our Lives
The words of our reading in church this morning were from Matthew chapter 16, verse 26. "Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it." I was thinking about that this afternoon and what it means to lose one's life. The realization that our lives don't belong to us can be a scary one and an honest surrender of one's future plans to the Lord can be far from comfortable.
From the time I was young I have always prayed, "Lord, my life is Yours. Do with me what You will. Use me, Lord." Well, one day I just woke up and it hit me that God was doing this. And do you know what it looked like? Not what I had planned.
I'm not living in Togo or Peru or Vietnam. I don't have small foreign children crawling around me whlie I teach them Bible stories from flannelgraph. I don't even have two or three of my own children to hold and teach. I have no husband. My name is not well known. I don't have two dozen friends and I spend the majority of my Friday nights at home.
But I honestly and sincerely believe God is using me. This week I spent an entire afternoon helping an 88 year old lady try to find a walker she liked. I spent an evening cheering up lonely students from foreign countries who are studying in the US. I washed dishes. I sent e-mails. I answered phone calls. I talked with my sisters. I forfeited what I wanted to do for what others needed. And, I simply was. And my living and moving and being was in the Lord.
We have to believe that our being matters, that our quiet surrender counts to the Lord, that the small "I want to do this, but instead I will do this," is, in the big picture, the taking up of our cross. The world counts success in numbers, in people influenced, in money made, in projects completed, in heights gained. Sometimes the church counts in people saved, children born, and years of marriage. I think it is crucial to our well-being that we realize God counts differently. He counts attitudes changed, He counts small surrenders and little sacrifices, and He counts the steady turning over of our hearts and plans to Him.
I think losing our lives means looking back on our days and weeks and months and years and realizing we didn't live them for ourselves. Our plans are gone, our hopes are laid at the altar, our Isaacs are tied up and given over to Him. We live in the big picture, where the gaining of our souls is the important issue. And to do that, and do it right, involves losing ourselves - in service, in love, in surrender. One day it may suddenly dawn on us that our lives - that is, our plans and goals and desires - are consumed by the burning, eternal fire of "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done." And in this lies the saving of our souls.
Posted by lilypress at October 22, 2005 4:19 AM
Comments
That was a really great article Naomi! I really appreciate all that you and your family do for all of we girls. I really enjoyed your book.
Posted by: Rebecca S. at October 22, 2005 2:31 PM
