everything was designed for my losing
Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
- Matthew 10.39, ESV
Just under a month ago I was driving to a photoshoot in Pittsburgh; near where the Blue and Green Belts meet just north of the Allegheny River and just west of my old neighborhood, Lawrenceville, when one of those subtly-almost-profound moments (almost) happened. The shoot was in Oakmont, the tiny suburb that hosted last year’s U.S. Open where twenty-seven-year-old Pittsburgh-Mayor Luke Ravenstahl made semi-national news by sneaking into the country club wearing an un-authorized American Express Polo-shirt to get Tiger Woods’ autograph. It was a typical almost-spring-day in Western Pennsylvania: cold, foggy, overcast and rainy and as I made my way along Allegheny River Boulevard while these lyrics (”everything was designed for my losing, i am the loser, i am a loser…”) nestled out of my crackly speakers (or head-unit) the above Scripture began to make a little sense.
In our sin-saturated physical (and temporary) domain the material presents itself as our daily and functional savior. Every new savior we acquire leaves us hanging and as the excitement of the new wears off the need for a new salvation appears in the next material object that we’ve deemed will save us; a functional and fictional messiah. Jesus in his claim of authentic-Messiahship tells us that we must lose everything and be willing to lose everything, for his sake and the Gospel (Mark 8.35). Everything was designed for my (and your) losing. Our Creator, in His sovereignty, has placed before us the material world and in that we can choose to be rescued by a material-messiah or an authentic one.
Everything was designed for my losing.
The things we encounter on a daily basis seem like such a huge deal. Do you ever notice how the smallest things make the youngest children cry for seemingly no good reason? Much can be made from this illustration as we too, even as adults make much of nothing. And as C.S. Lewis famously said “We are far too easily pleased”.
This reality was made even a little more clear for me in the past few weeks. Desires I so longingly want to see fulfilled felt compromised a few days before my doctor’s visit last week. Maybe this was designed for my losing, but was I willing to lose it? And in the potential possibility of losing it, the bigger question emerges - “Will I remain faithful” or will I “Curse God (and die)” as Job’s wife so lovingly encouraged him to do.
Daily, the physical realm preaches to us that it can offer us salvation. Time and time again salvation comes and goes and the next iPod (No matter how much those Apple freaks love Steve Jobs, he, by no means, is any messiah) or the next relationship or the next job will really save us. Functional (fictional) Messiahs are all around, but will we come to the realization that everything really is designed for our losing? Jesus told us this must be so - when will we take him at his word?
Only then can we sing with joy “i am the loser, i am a loser” (oh, the irony).
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i love this. even with the Apple remarks.