Sacrifice iS nOT fOOLISH, bUT aVOIDING iT iS

​A gardener holds a seed in his palm. He loves the seed and fears what the soil might do to it. So he polishes it, protects it, keeps it safe. But it never grows. In saving the seed, he sacrificed the tree.

It's the story of so many lives. Sacrifice, the brave thing, the key to life, becomes the grave thing. That which we avoid. Refuse. Until death.

In maybe his most radical invitation ever, Jesus once said: "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.”

Jesus was essentially saying, true life is only found on the other side of surrender.

Many centuries after Jesus offered his invitation, P.T. Barnum would say, comfort is the enemy of progress."

Today is a day that we honor the sacrifices of many. That is a good and worthy thing to do. But while doing so, it may also be a good day to take measure of - to meditate on - our own willingness to sacrifice.

To ask, is my unwillingness to sacrifice holding me back in life.

Is my unwillingness to sacrifice ego standing in my way of growth? Growth demands humility: the willingness to admit we’re wrong, to be stretched, to fail in front of others. When we won’t sacrifice ego we stay stuck at the edge of change, never stepping into the refining fire that growth requires.

You can’t heal what you pretend doesn’t hurt. And you can’t grow what you refuse to look deeply at.

Refusing to change can be it's own grave sacrifice.

We say we want more joy, more peace, more connection. But when it comes time to put down the phone, say no to the drink, speak the hard truth, get out of bed early, or walk away from comfort food or numbing behavior - we tell ourselves we’re not ready.

And maybe we’re not. But the longer we wait, the more we sacrifice. We think we’re preserving comfort, but we’re trading away life.

What if the thing you’re clinging to isn’t keeping you alive… it’s keeping you from coming alive?

Jesus didn’t come to just make us morally better. He came to make us fully alive. But the road to life passes through the grave of old patterns.

And what about the sacrifices we refuse to make that quietly stand in our way of intimacy - whether with God, others, or even ourselves?

Like sacrificing the need to be right.

Like hiding behind strength and sarcasm and self-sufficiency to avoid the sacrifice of revealing the soft sides of ourselves.

Like holding on to secrets to avoid sacrificing the need for hard conversations, sacrificing the possibility that hidden wounds become our own vulnerable and naked truth.

Secrets don't preserve intimacy, they slowly kill it.

We say we want intimacy, but we often want it on our terms. We want love without vulnerability. Connection without disruption.
But intimacy doesn’t grow in safety, it grows in surrender.

ALL life grows in surrender.

We live in a world that wants to offer us the latest hack, the latest secret to comfort, the 'simplest' paths to navigate life.

Then you get older and wiser like me, and one day you realize there are no hacks, there is no simple solution to comfort. There is no easy path. The greatest sacrifice of all is giving up the pursuit of the easy path and looking for sacrifices.

For sacrifice has been, is, and will forever be the only answer.

Today, I honor the bravery of those who have sacrifice all.

And at the same time, write a warning to myself and anyone who like me who might need to hear it - that there is a gravery (my word) in avoiding sacrifice.

“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” — Jim Elliot

There is no foolishness in sacrifice; yet much in running from it.