Finding Your Life

The para­dox was sim­ply stated. You have to “lose your life to find it.” The phrase is more than a rid­dle. It is a truth that is redis­cov­ered each time it is taken seri­ously. Var­i­ous psy­cholo­gies have described it in other terms. Invari­ably, some­where along your life’s jour­ney, you stum­ble into the key to a bet­ter way of being. To para­phrase one psychologist/philosopher: “at midlife your ego gets called into ques­tion by your greater self.” It is the clas­sic midlife cri­sis. You dis­cover that you are greater than how you spent half a life­time defin­ing yourself.

I was on my way to elec­tron­ics school in Okla­homa City when I sat in on a col­lege Bible class (forty years ago this Novem­ber). The rest is his­tory and a jour­ney that has taken me into and out of all sorts of degree pro­grams, painful con­flicts, and amaz­ing life-passages. I some­times won­der what would have hap­pened if I had not taken that one lit­tle fork in the road toward the meta­phys­i­cal instead of the prac­ti­cal. Every now and then, you need to glance back at how you found your life too.

There is an old adage that says, “Life is what hap­pens to us while we are mak­ing plans for some­thing else.” We sort of stum­ble along into our new lives while our egos try to get us to do some­thing more showy or grand. One day we wake up and won­der how we got where we are. For some that is a fright­en­ing cri­sis, but for oth­ers it is a rea­son to celebrate.

Oppor­tu­ni­ties to find your life usu­ally come in the midst of some cri­sis: an unex­pected preg­nancy, the death of a loved one, a rad­i­cal move, a failed mar­riage, or even the dis­cov­ery of a dis­ease process within your own body. At that point you have to decide whether to keep try­ing to pur­sue your pre­vi­ous course — know­ing full well that you can­not — or bravely take on the new journey.

Human­ity has its oppor­tu­ni­ties for choice too. Wars, famine, eco­nomic col­lapse, and nat­ural dis­as­ters — just to name a few. Given the group deci­sion, a coun­try either rises to the occa­sion or sinks in despair. His­tory is filled with both — mostly the latter.

You may find a whole new YOU today. There is no telling what cri­sis it may take — from a car acci­dent to a shift in world events. You can­not know God’s invi­ta­tion ahead of time. In the mean time, take Jesus’ advice about los­ing your life to find it. Each time you do, it is always a step up.