24 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.
Heaven’s math works very differently than earthly math. On earth if you save something, you still have it. It is saved. If you lose something, it is gone. But from God’s perspective when we try to hang on to our life we lose it. If we are not willing to let something other than preservation of our life be the center of our existence, we really have no life at all. The things we hold most tightly to, those are the things we lose in the end. The life of faith is about letting go. It is about trusting. If we really want life we must let go of holding on, and live life at this moment for the Lord. It is the ‘right now’ that can be surrendered to the Lord. There is no tomorrow to surrender. Tomorrow is not here, so we do not have it to surrender. We can surrender our ‘right now’ to God. We can yield in this moment to His will. That is what losing our life is about. We give up the right to control the moment, the here and now. We choose instead to listen and follow the Lord in this present moment. That does not mean we don’t plan, but that we are present in this moment, that we acknowledge and experience God ‘right now.’ Altar calls at youth camps are great. Times of decision are needed. But what we really need is the commitment not to go serve God some future day on some far off mission field. What we need is surrender ‘right now’ to God’s leading and guiding. When God has the ‘right now’, he has all He needs to meet the needs of those in the far off lands. When we give up our agenda for the day and adopt His, then He has a tool He can use for His glory.
The Arnold Journey 