Love is Sacrifice.
Sacrifice is hurtful. Maybe not always, but it surely was for the most important sacrifice of all.
Sacrifice means letting go, suffering, and even losing everything to reset your life.
The biggest part that I struggle with the notion of sacrifice is the goodness that comes from it.
In life, we don't see the goodness of things until much later, and we have to think of what I really would have happened if things were done differently. As a follower of Christ, and a believer in God's plan, I really struggle with this, although I shouldn't. Most of the times, I cannot wait until I find out the best, and I end up leak all the fun and joy out of it even before I get the sense it.
I mean, I get it, sometimes I do ruin it for myself, but it's just so hard to see what's good about all the pain I am going through....
This got me thinking.
Sometimes, I wonder if Jesus felt that it is good when he was closing in on his last breath. Right after when He said: ...“Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46), I wonder if He knew 'this is good, My Father is in motion and everything is golden'? It boggles my mind, on how when someone is suffering through so much pain, one can say :
This would be my comfort;
I would even exult in pain unsparing,
for I have not denied the words of the Holy One.Job 6:10
I sure have a hard time on giving up, letting go and laying it down for myself. but I think Jesus puts it in a perspective that strikes us to be awaken in this.
This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you, so that you will love one another.John 15:12-17
Jesus laid Himself down for His friends... and well, in fact, called us friends, for sinning against Him and even chose us to bear fruit. This sense of adoption is the only way we will find the light at the end of the tunnel. I want to leave you with this last verse that to remind us that we can endure through all the pain and suffering.
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
Phil 4:13
