Never more than

 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. (Matthew 16:25)

What do you really "want" today? I have to ask myself this from time to time because I forget quickly what it is I am working toward or attempting to see accomplished in my life. I get off-track soon enough and you know what that means - - - a whole lot of back-tracking. If you have ever left a room in search of something you needed, then midway stopped short totally forgetting whatever it was that you set out to find, you know how back-tracking can sometimes actually show you where you got off-course and re-establish your goal. Sometimes we just need to take those steps back in order to take the right steps forward.

Whoever wants - I think this means if we 'set out' and somehow get distracted along the way, there is a way back. There is always a way forward, even when we don't think there is any hope of ever getting back on track. It may not be all that hard to find our way back, either! We sort of attempt to do all the work of coming back to 'right-standing' with God, don't we? It is like we expect he won't be happy with us for having left the track we were on with him and therefore we must have to convince him we are sincere this time! If we lose our lives, we find them. It is at the end of loss that we find life!

Let that one sink in a bit, my friends. At the end we find the beginning. We don't lose anything really - it is all there waiting for us just as though we never got lost along the way! As long as what we 'lose' is our self-righteousness and self-interest, we are going to find his righteousness and become enthralled in the things that mean the most to him. As you may have realized already - to grow one needs to actually allow a little death. Death indicates loss, doesn't it? We may not want to admit it, but when we allow some of the weights that have burdened us for so long be shed, we become immensely free and are transformed.

Want to see God's best in your lives? Lay down you life. Want to get freshness in life - don't be afraid to take the steps back into his graces. Allow death to occur - as uncomfortable as that may sound - it is essential. The way we think our lives should have 'played out' may not be the way they actually did, but that doesn't have to be the place where we live forever. The journey doesn't always look like the destination - sometimes we take a different journey and find we are now in quite a different destination than we planned. Whenever we trade the pleasures of the moment for the enjoyment of eternity, we will always be disappointed 

Today, there might be some need to lay down the destination in order to figure out where we were headed and what it was we were seeking to find in the first place. We want to quit when it is hard and we cannot figure out where it is we got off course. God says it is time to commit even when we don't see how God is going to work within our lives. Don't jump out of his grace - stay there, my friends. As you lay down that burden, allowing death to be a place of rebirth, you won't be disappointed. Just sayin!