Do I Understand Sacrifice?

Sacrifice. A word I'd like to think I understand. A word that I try to convince myself and others that I understand. If there is one thing I am learning here it is that I have understood up to this point in my life very little of what that word means. I was confronted today by a Rwandan friend who was asking me if I could make a very simple change in order to better accommodate him, his needs, and his culture. I found it incredibly challenging. This was not a matter of what was right and what was wrong, but merely what was comfortable for me. This change that he was requesting was making me uncomfortable, for no reason other than I was brought up in a culture in which I highly value my independence, and I'm realizing that any request that jeopardizes my sense of self-reliance is making me incredibly uncomfortable. I would like to think I understand how to give things up in order to serve my fellow man, as Jesus calls us to do. 1 John 3:16 states that this is even how we know what love is: That Jesus laid down His life for us. So we also ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. I think that I have probably talked a big game in the past, perhaps even spouting off some pious words about how we should lay down our lives for our brothers, but have I had even the foggiest clue of what I was saying? I'm beginning to think I probably did not have as much of a clue as I thought I did. If I was really emulating Jesus in laying down my life for my brothers, would I have such a hard time giving up a simple comfort of my culture to accommodate a Rwandan brother? Jesus was hung on a cross for me. Do I really understand the weight of that sacrifice when I struggle to make the simplest changes in my life? Paul was beaten, jailed, shipwrecked, and did it all with joy to be counted worthy of sharing in the fellowship of the sufferings of Jesus. These are not stories in a history book, they are real-life examples in a manual of how we are called to live ourselves.

Jesus was one with God. Jesus was in very nature God. But He became so much like me that the average Joe on the street would not have even been able to tell us apart. Did I deserve that? Did He have to go to that extreme? He met with us in the most real way: by BECOMING ONE OF US. Incarnation. Joining with His people in the deepest way possible. Am I really willing to lay down my life for my brother? To empty myself of myself so that I can truly embrace the mission of Jesus, to empty myself of my American comforts, water, independence, self-reliance, comfort, comfort, comfort, and be willing to be uncomfortable for the sake of joining with my Rwandan brothers and sisters as I serve them? Not serving them as someone who is somehow higher up or more elite (how very presumptuous is the thought, but how many of us really show that is how we believe by our elitist actions..."well, I deserve running water because I'm an American!), but serving as someone who is willing to get low, to get dirty, to get uncomfortable, for the sake of truly serving, from the bottom up, like Jesus did.

"Take up your cross and follow me." -Jesus.

Where is He leading you today? Are you willing to follow, even if it makes you uncomfortable? Is He worth it? Is your fellow man worth it?

"This is how we know what love is. Jesus Christ laid down His life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers." 1 John 3:16.