Lost and then Found

“For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it.” (Lu 9:24 AV)

I know there is a debate regarding this verse.  There are some who believe this challenge only applies to salvation.  There are others who believe this challenge is one of total discipleship.  These disputes are founded in the context of the particular gospel in which this account is found.  Personally, I believe it applies to both.  What started at salvation must continue likewise to a total commitment to discipleship.  Having laid this foundation, the question presents itself.  Have we gotten to the point of losing ourselves for the sake of finding ourselves?  What exactly does that mean.  It appears above that if we do not lose ourselves, we become trapped.  If we lose ourselves, we are free and are saved from whatever it was which entrapped us.

One of the scariest times of my life was when my wife and I were traveling from Paducah, Kentucky to Nashville, TN.  We were headed east on route twenty-four.  It was the winter months and the temperature was right around freezing.  Interstate twenty-four and plenty of raised elevations and small bridges over roadways.  The speed limit was seventy miles-an-hour and we were traveling about sixty.  I knew the roads were a bit slick so I wasn’t pushing it.  A raised elevation came up and we hit that bridge going sixty miles-an-hour.  I felt the front wheels starting to lose traction.  We had hit a patch of black ice.  The bridge was probably one hundred and fifty feet long.  The first instinct would be to hit the breaks.  I did not do that.  The second would be to accelerate hoping to gain traction.  I did not do that either.  Either one of those choices was very bad.  What I did was to disengage the cruise control and take my feet away from both the gas and the break.  I turned the wheel only very slightly if at all.  What I did was to yield to the conditions of the roadway and not make any sudden or panicked responses to something that was out of my control.  In order to save our lives, I had to relinquish control over them.  We lived through it!  From that point forward, whenever a bridge loomed in the distance, I took my foot off the gas and allowed the are to slow, passing over the black ice and allowed the car to dictate the safest path to travel.  Another short example to prove the opposite.  My childhood friend Scott Benson and I used to love riding the tilt-o-wheel at our local amusement park.  The thing about the tilt-o-wheel was the more you yielded to what the car was prone to do, the better the ride.  The more you fought centrifugal force, the more you could hurt yourself.  Sore muscles were the result if you tried to control the ride contrary to its nature.

Walking with God is exactly the same.  The more we fight against that which the Holy Spirit is trying to accomplish, the more we hurt ourselves.  The more we yield to the will of the Master, the more we will understand and feel grateful for the blessing which is life in Christ.  The meaning of the above verse goes even deep than this.  The suggestion is we will not find true life; be it the blessings of life or the purpose of life; unless we give up trying to control it.  Like a mother of a newborn knows, if she is to enjoy her life as a mother, she must yield all her energy, resources, and time to that little human being.  We are miserable because we are trying to control something which is out of our control.  Our lives are not our own.  The LORD gives us the ability to choose, but with that comes a false idea of total and complete freedom to be self-determined.  This simply not true.  Circumstances often dictate the quality of life we enjoy.   The more we take our hands off the steering wheel, the gas, and the break, the more we will enjoy the life God has for us, and the more we will find our purpose.  The more we yield control, the more the Holy Spirit reveals meaning.  The more we resign to the plan of God and allow Him to work, the far less damage we will do to ourselves and those around us.