Two days ago I lost a chicken and found a cat.
A bad day in that respect.
Yesterday I found the chicken and lost the cat.
The chicken I wanted because it was an Aricana chicken which lays green eggs(although I need to check the spelling).
The cat I didn't want, but it showed up in my barn looking skinny and lost. I would gladly have kept the friendly cat had I not already owned two good cats. But he turned out to be my landlord's next door, and I already have his horse since it would rather live here with my horses than with his owners cows. And his cows even visited here briefly until they finished browsing in my garden. So I didn't want his cat!
Instead of a sweet little half grown cat desperately needing a safe haven, it became tainted. And I got my daughter to buy into that idea also(took a moment), and she agreed. So we agreed to take it back to his barn and if it ever comes back I will swat it with the newspaper until it goes away. Although my daughter refuses to participate there.
"Whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel's will save it,"Jesus says.
That is a staggering statement for me and probably many other born again souls here on earth. Losing the visible to gain the invisible. Jesus might comfort us saying, "Yes, I know, that does seem hard to hear". But we know that for they who do it...the invisible becomes visible; the intangible becomes tangible.
We examine ourselves within to find the Spirit of the living God there, both empowering us unto things which if left to ourselves we could not do; and disempowering[not even a word -- but it should be} those destructive forces which we long to be extricated from.
We feel great joy.
Mt 16:25 "For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it."
Today, when someone has on a piece of clothing on that is just flat hard to look at, then sometimes in a playful manner we might say, "hey, why don't you lose that cheesy looking shirt", or, "you could lose silly looking pair of shoes". That very figure of speech, to "lose" this or that, that is to "get rid of it", has entranced me, good or bad, into looking at this verse in a similar fashion.
"Whoever wishes to save his life will 'lose' it"!
Or, 'lose' that phony old life of yours -- count it as rubbish -- and put on all things new and eternal. And it's no loss at all but only gain. Not your life anymore but Christ in you.
So we 'let lose' of our lives and we find Life overflowing! A miracle. And we thank the Lord.
May our days be filled with it.
