Recovering the art of sacrifice

A few weeks ago I followed a bunch of blog links (which for the life of me I cannot remember) and ended up at an interesting article written by a man who had met a rather sad character on a business flight. Since reading the article a few thoughts have been buzzing incessantly around in my mind. The events went something like this. The author of the article was seated by a man who was extremely successful in the television industry. He owned several stations, etc. He was a self-made man, and the amazing thing about him was that he had not completed university until he was nearly 35, because he had stopped his studies on several occasions to go back to work to support his other brothers and sisters. He had made numerous sacrifices for others in the midst of his efforts for his own advancement. (The exact details escape me.) Anyway, he had just come from the graduation of one of his children (he had six from two marriages), and he was expressing his dismay at how spoiled and selfish his own child was. The author of the article listened to all the man had to say, then made a comment that went something like this: "It seems to me that after you had such an uphill struggle in making your own way in the world, you did everything in your power to protect your children from any need for sacrifice or hard work, and now you have raised children that you can't respect."

Ka-WHAM! This hit me right between the eyes! Is there any society in all of history that is so spoiled, that has things so easy? I don't think so. And I will be the first to admit that there are times when I make every effort to be sure that my kids "don't go without." I have to think that maybe in the midst of all the comforts and conveniences, we might be losing the development of character, which is more important than the others, by far! Consequently, we are spiritually atrophied and often deformed. There is very little in the way of spiritual exercise, because we don't have to work for anything, we don't have to strive for anything, because God wants us to have it all. Our gospel has turned much of scripture on its head, and instead of us striving to live lives of gratitude to God, we make sure that just about every verse in the Bible is seen to be showing what God is going to do for us.

I remember when I was younger and zealous and idealistic, and all that kind of exciting stuff, one of my favourite scriptures was David's declaration at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite: "I will not sacrifice to the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing" (2 Samuel 24:24). There was an element of cost in our discipleship. If it didn't cost, what was it worth? We almost wanted it to cost, because we had grasped the principle that sacrifice brings blessing. I had to admit that this verse had not crossed my mind for way too long. Nowadays a lot of churches do everything in their power to make the message of the gospel cost as little as possible. "We'll make this as easy as we can. Just let us know if we offend you in any way, and we'll change things for you."

I don't want to turn this into a monstrous rambling on, but I have been stirred to consider how I am living my life for my God, my family, other believers, and the world around me. Am I living a life that willingly embraces sacrifice? Am I sacrificing myself in ways that are going to bring the blessing of God in the eternal, unseen realm--where it really matters? Sacrifice has kind of become a dirty and forgotten word in our affluent, over-indulgent society. I realise that sacrifice just for the sake of sacrifice is of no value to anybody, least of all to me, but when there is a situation that means I can pursue my own wants or put others before myself, what is usually my first instinctive action? I'm going to make an effort to get the word "sacrifice" back into my regular vocabulary, and into my daily life, with God's help.