striving to be a loser

i should be studying right now
but these thoughts have been stirring in my head for days 
and well...theyre going a little stir crazy
plus i studied econ for a total of almost 8 hours yesterday, and well...i think i should get a little break


i have a gift 


its a gift that nobody wants, but man...ive got it


i have a gift for losing things
i dont mean that every couple of days i misplace my keys for a few minutes(which i do, but its more like everyday for at least 15 minutes...at least once)
i mean...like 2 years ago i lost so many debit cards in such a short amount of time (9 in 7 months....yes you read that correctly, no it isnt an exaggeration) that they knew me personally at the bank and had memorized my address to send it to....i was so embarassed the 10th time that i stopped banking all together and decided to only use cash


well i dont know why i thought that if i lost bank cards all the time that i for some reason wouldnt lose cash...that was dumb. my final solution? i started banking somewhere else
yep. i was so embarassed that i just decided to forgo bank a and begin banking at bank b...


clearly i rock at losing things


and i suppose that since i rock at this it would be easy to understand Christ's command to lose my life so that i might find it


but ive never understood that..it doesnt make any sense at all
its gibberish
and foregn
and in trying to grow in my faith journey and thinking about everything ive been consistently taught over the years, the combinations of all those teachings have previously arrived me at this conclusion:


so im supposed to live my life like Jesus, but lose my life, but find Jesus' life, but find my life while finding Jesus' life, but die to myself, but live for Jesus, but live for others...but live for Jesus first, and then others...but not really others...just kind of


and there have been few if any notions of how one might do this
so you can probably see my confusion right?


well im pretty pumped because the Lord has finally given some clarity...and no worries, i will now share said clarity with you


ready? lets go. 
so i would assume that the 4 of you reading this have all lost something at some point
losing stuff sucks
its frustrating
annoying
hard
painful sometimes (depending on the item lost)
and its incredibly inconvenient


and since God says He is THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE
this to me would indicate to me that we are only allowed to have one life, and we can either have ours...or we can have His...but in the end...one is all we get


and we all lose stuff at different times, and the stuff we lose is very different, and the consequences of the loss vary greatly as well...but i am willing to make the claim here that one thing is for sure about almost every loss ever experienced and that is: the one time youre trying to lose something is going to be the one time you dont lose it...


so if God said, ok guys im gonna give you a life to start off with but as soon as you lose it ill give you a way way way better one...and then didnt give us some sort of "distraction" or other focus we would all still be focused on losing our lives and wed be focused on us and we would never get anywhere


so instead He gives us Another Life to focus on pursuing and being like and then in the process of trying to find Jesus' life we begin to lose our own...
and thats why at points this journey is frustrating...
because it isnt that we dont know or arent losing our own lives
its quite the opposite
we completely realize whats going on...and we choose to focus on all that we are losing because of it
we get upset that we cant seek revenge anymore
we realize that gossip shouldnt seep from our lips anymore
we realize that we have to pray for our enemies now
we realize that we have to treat people the way we want to be treated now
we realize that Love is wrecking our lives


what we also fail to realize is that what we are finding is WAY WAY WAY better
what we fail to realize is that peace overwhelms the place that revenge once was
what we fail to realize is that kindness spews where gossip once lingered
what we fail to realize is that the Lord has control over our enemies as well
what we fail to realize is that we are being treated by others the way we are treating them
what we fail to realize is that Love has wrecked our lives


what we fail to realize is that we have lost our lives to find The Life


today i choose to be a life wrecked by Love because it is no longer i who lives but CHRIST IN ME