Losing our lives

Matthew 10 : 34 - 11: 1

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

In recent years, my daily devotional reading includes a gospel passage. I follow the daily Lectionary, where there is a gospel reading and either an Old Testament or New Testament reading, and a psalm. It is a three year cycle. I find that in the gospels, I keep meeting and hearing Jesus in new and challenging ways. In spiritual formation, we speak about growing in Christlikeness. I am given glimpses of what that looks like when I meet Jesus through the gospel writers. Each time I read a passage, I am at a different place in my own life....and therefore the actual working out of Jesus' teaching changes.

None of the many self-improvement and self-actualization programmes in vogue today would put up Jesus' words above on their promotion banner. I'm sure Jesus' hearers, in this case his own 'spiritual formation group' of Twelve were left with a lot on their minds after their Master's teaching. As I hear this word again today, I wonder what it means in practice for me. And each of us has to do this for ourselves, as we listen to our Lord's personal invitation for us. Even the Twelve had different callings; some were martyred, while others like John lived to an old age. Some travelled widely in their ministry but some remained largely in Jerusalem. And sadly, one, the betrayer lost his life by trying to gain it and ended up taking his own life.

I believe the Lord may not be calling each and every person to a drastic change of lifestyle with these words. Nor is everyone called to martyrdom. While we wonder about what it means concretely for us, we can prepare ourselves by taking on 'spiritual exercise' in the form of spiritual disciplines. What disciplines will help us to be less grasping (or 'kia-su'), to be more open and generous with our time and possessions? The spiritual disciplines of abstinence (e.g. solitude, silence, fasting, frugality, chastity, secrecy, sacrifice...these are given by Dallas Willard in his book "The Spirit of the Disciplines") help us lose ourselves, for the sake of others, and of course, for our Lord's sake.

Perhaps these are good 'baby' steps at learning what it means to 'lose our lives'. Then, as we become more adept, we will be ready to hear our Lord's specific calling in these words: "Lose you lives for my sake...."