Lately I've been listening to this song by the fray called how to save a life. The song is about this guy wondering where he went wrong, and how things could have gone differently if he'd known what do do to save his friend's life. There's an interesting story behind it.
The thing is, I do know how to save a life. It's a value for value thing, a one-for-one.
Laying down a list of what is wrong won't do it.
Praying to God that he hears you won't do it.
Lowering your voice and slipping past his defenses and staying up with him all night and all the skill with people techniques in the world won't do it.
How to save a life is to lose yours.
It hurts. It costs.
And saving a life and saving a friend are not the same thing.
3 comments:
You're asking too much, my friend. If I give my life for someone who needs it more than I, then I end up dead, or at the least, with less life.
And I am more valuable alive than dead. At least, IMHO.
What you are asking is for me to accept that giving my life is more important than living my life.
That's difficult to accept. I like my life. I like challenges and accomplishments better than sacrifices.
But then, you're not asking me to accept anything more than Jesus Himself did: "Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it."
It's hard to accept that the purpose of losing my life is so that someone else can have it. But there's no better reason to lose my life than the prospect of receiving HIS in the end.
Ok, so if that's the case, then maybe the question isn't "Will He ask me to lose my life?"
Maybe it's actually "HOW will He ask me to lose my life?"
I use Firefox. It has this cool find box at the bottom that lets you search for words or phrases on a page. I found 8 times you said my life.
And it is true, isn't it? I mean, if anything is actually mine it is my life, isn't it?
It does seem that God looks at it the same way, too. The one who says, "you are gods, your are all sons of the Most High" seems to recognize the weight of the gift which are our lives.
My life.
The thing is, a lot of stuff that masquerades as my life isn't really my life. A lot of it is my shtick. The game I'm good at playing. What "works for me".
And then there is my moral life, the one that quotes scriptures and deals with others in integrity and accepts challenges and accomplishes great things by wisdom.
And then there is the life that is good, the one that is pleasing to God and others. This is the one reflecting God's love. This life is giving the words of Jesus a go.
But my real life is hidden in Christ. God alone calls me by my real name.
So I have this life of mine that I am making work, this life that has a lot of aspects to it, this life full of sound and fury, this life that makes a lot of sense. And then I have this other life that is hidden and mysterious.
Have you ever watched a caterpillar break out of its cocoon as a butterfly? I have seen it. It is magical.
Have you ever blown a dandelion and watched the seeds be raptured by the wind?
Have you ever crushed a flower and smelled its aroma?
When you give your life for someone else it's not that they get to have the life you would have had. The trade is that you give one life so they can have one life that is qualitatively superior to the one they were destined for.
Maybe you quench their antagonist's wrath. Maybe you become the bad guy and give petty men someone else to blame. Maybe you say goodbye to your friends and even your dreams to let someone else have the chance to grow into who you were to them. Maybe you blow your whole reputation on one issue whose injustice makes you burn with fury, for the sake of one person who is more valuable to you than inheriting the crown of a great king.
This is interesting:
Psalm 82
A psalm of Asaph.
God presides in the great assembly;
he gives judgment among the gods:
How long will you defend the unjust
and show partiality to the wicked?
Selah
Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless;
maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed.
Rescue the weak and needy;
deliver them from the hand of the wicked.
They know nothing, they understand nothing;
they walk about in darkness;
all the foundations of the earth are shaken.
I said, you are gods,
you are all sons of the Most High.
But you will die like mere men;
you will fall like every other prince.
Rise up, O God, judge the earth,
for all the nations are your inheritance.
I think there is a time for counsel, a time for judgment, a time to give someone a hand up rather than a hand out. But there is also a time when the prince must fall, when the god must die like a mere man, when everything that is good and right and beautiful and true must be crushed by mere power so that something as intangible and indescribable as new life can come forth.
The irony is that when I give my life for someone else, the one I get afterwards is in one sense less but in another sense much more. But (at least for me) I say it's not worth doing if it only makes my life better.
Hey Jon,
I forgot to say after your comment:
Amen.
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