Sacrifice is the pathway to a better future

​Sacrifice is commonly regarded as giving up something valuable in the present to improve the future. What sacrifice looks like has evolved over time.

In the old testament of the bible, sacrifice was often people sacrificing their good livestock to get back on the good side of God. Then of course, the idea of sacrifice radically changed in the new testament when Jesus sacrificed his life for the good of all humanity.

This set the stage for sacrifice to become more personal, for giving of one's self for a better future.

Today, we set aside one day each year, Memorial Day, to nationally recognize the service men and women who have sacrificed their lives in hopes of securing a better future for our country.

There is no greater giving of one's self.

I think we have long recognized the important linkage between sacrifice and a better future. But on this day of recognizing the ultimate sacrifice, giving one's life, I have to wonder if we're better at honoring sacrifice than doing it.

Or at least I have to wonder that about me.

Maybe it's because when we honor sacrifice it is often grand acts of sacrifice like giving one's life. I don't ever want to minimize the grandness of those acts, but it's also important to know seemingly lesser sacrifices can have equally grand effects on the future.

I wonder, for example, what would happen today if we all agreed to sacrifice our bitterness? Just take it to the alter and burn it for the good of all humanity.

What would happen today if we all sacrificed our screen time? We currently spend an average of 7 hours a day looking at our screens. What if we gave up even a few hours of that to look at each other?

What would happen today if we sacrificed alcohol? 5 million people visit emergency rooms each year with alcohol related illnesses and injuries; 140,000 people die. 30 million are annually diagnosed with alcohol use disorders. Maybe alcohol isn't destroying your future, but it's destroying THE future.

What if we sacrificed old systems that benefit some but disregard many?

What if we sacrificed name-calling?

What if on this Memorial Day, when we rightfully honor so many men and women who have sacrificed it all for the future of our country, we asked the question, am I honoring those sacrifices with a willingness to make my own?

For most of us are not being called to sacrifice our lives, but to sacrifice pieces of our lives that would not only make the greater world around us a better place, but they are indeed sacrifices that would make us feel healthier in every space we enter.

Sacrifice is giving up something valuable in the present to improve the future. Well some of the things we're holding onto aren't valuable at all, they are just hard to let go of. On a day when we recognize countless who let go of their lives, hard seems like a fairly weak excuse.

It's a good day to be thankful for those who have sacrificed it all.

It's a good day to be thankful we haven't been called on to do the same.

But it's a good day to reflect and maybe examine; am I being called to sacrifice something in my present for the good of the future, both mine and the world at large?

Sacrifice is the pathway to a better future. Understanding that is not nearly as difficult as the sacrificing. But maybe it's time to move beyond the understanding.