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

What does it mean to loose or find your life? How come those who find it loose it, and those that loose it find it?

It just didn’t make sense for me, and, as a paradox is wont to do, it took me outside of my usual way of thinking.

I understand the focus of this quote of Jesus is that He is the purpose of life, and yet the paradox remains. I sometimes try to hard to understand this paradox, and even as I write, my mind is somewhat whirling in the way to approach this verse. 

To lose your life? Is it ultimately speaking of physical death? No – that can’t be, for to physically die would not produce life, at least not in the disciples understanding such as it was. 

To lose your life? To be restricted from your personal desires, wants and aspirations? To give up on dreams and hopes, to abandon my wishes and goals? We often hear of the modern preacher speaking of how God loves us and wants to fulfill all our personal desires, so that can’t be what Jesus meant. 

But wait a minute – let us consider the first phrase that Jesus starts the paradox with. He who finds his life will lose it. If the life Jesus speaks of equates to the personal desires, hopes and aspirations of a soul, then to exercise those selfsame desires would result in loss of life. And yet this again is what the modern preacher preaches.

Someone has it all wrong. I would suggest the modern preacher, suggesting we can have it all! That God wants us to have it all!

After this paradox has been whirling about in my head, I am starting to think that the message Jesus provided isn’t too hard to understand, but that I don’t want to understand it. Let’s be honest about this – I simply don’t want to drop my dreams to pursue His will, I don’t want to give up on my hopes in order to live a life of sacrifice, of dying to myself. 

Of course, to die to one’s dreams and aspirations is not something that Jesus calls us to in the future. I often think of this action as something required in the future, that I will perform some type of large singular sacrifice for Him, all the while not even considering His will during the day to day grind.

The day to day grind, when the constant calls for your attention wear on you, dragging you down and pulling you to a selfish decision, a decision that serves self as opposed to serving others.

Isn’t that a large part of this call of Jesus on our lives? To serve others, and by serving others, serve Jesus?

May I suggest a 2 minute re-read of a post (Dying to Self) I published back in February 2020, just as the Covid crisis was bearing down on us. To lose your life is a moment by moment decision we are called to, in order to serve others by laying down our wishes for other’s needs. 

To choose other’s, because we worship Him, is the intent of this paradox. And it is a difficult “paradox” because of the application for our lives, not the message itself.

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