Thoughts over dinner:
The NIV translates this familiar passage like this:
24 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. 25 What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self? Lk 9:24–25.
This is more accurate to the Hebrew way of thinking. They knew, of course, about the immaterial part of our essence, but the word in Hebrew translated “soul” means our very self, our personhood, our whole being. In Greek, that word is “psyche” (used in Matthew 16); in Luke, the apostle simple says, “loses himself”.
I think that is what Jesus was getting at.
As the disciples would be heading into the world and preaching the gospel, there will always be the temptation to speak what everyone expects them to speak.
To speak the truth often meant being cast out of your community, your synagogue, your guild. You lost your family, your friends, your church, your livelihood. And so many, like the parents of the man born blind (John 9) didn’t speak at all because they were afraid.
But the consequence is this: eventually you lose yourself.
I had lost myself. But then I stopped being afraid and began to speak. And I lost friends, family, my culture, my denomination. But I found myself.
And it is wonderful. The Lord has lifted me out of a miry pit and set me on firm ground. The Lord took me out of a narrow place and set me in a wide place.
So now I am me. In a wide place, on firm ground, I can leap; I can dance. I can praise. I can be myself.
In the mud and the narrowness, everyone is afraid of losing their place and they can’t even imagine life outside the mud. They have their things and everything stays the same, but they lose themselves.
It is far better to have yourself and God created you, even if that means the loss of everything else.
Anything or anyone that insists that you stay captive in the narrow, mire-filled pit, isn’t worth holding on to anyway.
Save yourself by being brave enough to risk losing everything to find yourself. It is worth it. And Jesus walks with you there, in the wide pastures, by the still waters. And those still in the mud will be sure that you are doing something wrong, because they are so afraid of finding themselves that they don’t dare ask to be set free.
My Only Comfort 
It is very sad to read that the blind man’s parents were more interested in protecting themselves than doing whats right – speaking the truth and protecting their child. However it is very redeeming to read in v.35 to v. 41 that Jesus was close to the blind man (whose eyes were opened) and talked with him, and then rebuked the Pharisees who casted out the blind man. Reminds me of the verse from Psalms 27:10 “Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me” Even when those who are supposed to love us the most fail to love us because of selfish reasons Jesus never fails us and is close to the brokenhearted and collects our tears in a bottle and never forgets any of our pain.
Thank you Sam. So helpful but I’m sad for you about the losses.
A bit off topic but I hope this encourages you and others…
Today I was reading in my Cheque Book of the Bank of Faith ( or, Faith’s Check Book) by Charles Spurgeon for 8th June.
The verse is James 1:5…(KJV)
“If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.”
Other versions give a similar meaning to the word “ upbraideth” eg without reproach/criticising/scolding etc.
It really struck me how lovely God is…. and how different to the harsh treatment so often dished out to people who come to their minister or elders for advice/ help/compassion.
Yes indeed. It’s a very precious verse to me
“In the mud and the narrowness, everyone is afraid of losing their place and they can’t even imagine life outside the mud. They have their things and everything stays the same, but they lose themselves.”
“Anything or anyone that insists that you stay captive in the narrow, mire-filled pit, isn’t worth holding on to anyway.”
“And those still in the mud will be sure that you are doing something wrong, because they are so afraid of finding themselves that they don’t dare ask to be set free.”
A good “litmus” test is to ask yourself if you are able and allowed to relax and receive real fellowship, when you are with certain persons or groups. If you don’t feel safe and secure, not to mention wanted and welcomed, something might be off. And no, it might not be you. It just might be them.
I realized this when I found myself feeling so much better when I was alone, and away from people I once considered myself close to. But over time, I did not know if I could trust them. I did not know if I could truly grow; I felt pressured to stay the way they wanted, in order to be wanted by them at all. It became (or always was) transactional, not relational.
Loneliness is hard. It is okay to be afraid of feeling alone. BUT, it is far worse to BE alone, left alone, left behind, when you actually are with people. It was far preferable to both feel AND be alone with the Lord. I knew He would never leave or forsake me.
I actually felt like I was in a bubble both before AND after “jumping ship,” because I felt so isolated. I kept reminding myself that the Lord was always with me, no matter what kind of bubble I was in, no matter how tight the bubble felt. There was always room for Him in whatever space I felt confined by. Frankly, that is how such burdens were even bearable to begin with!
It is also a shock to the system to have felt so included with people, to suddenly BE so excluded by them. It is as if you ceased to exist, or never existed at all to them. In reality, the tables have turned. The people you thought they were, did not exist as they really are. It is like grieving their “deaths” in a way: the people you thought they were, only existed in your mind. Ignorance ceases to be bliss, when reality comes into existence.
BUT, I can attest to the truth of this post. It IS worth it: your previous ideas of freedom among others are NOTHING compared to what freedom with Him is really like—away from them, but never apart from Him. I do NOT miss any of the persons from my past anymore. In fact, I feel like I got out by the skin of my teeth, so I am grateful to have dodged those very close calls.
I think Paul is one of the best examples. If he had remained as a prominent Pharisee, he would have had led a MUCH different life–heralded with nonstop honors in both life AND death. He would have been popular, prominent—and powerfully pretentious! His nose would be stuck up as high as the skies, as uptight and tight-fisted as imaginable, but he would have been painfully lonely as well. Living a self-righteous life might be perceived as walking on the “straight and narrow,” but in reality it is nothing but a prison cell.
Ironically, Paul ended up being in prison cells for the sake of Christ, once he WAS set free by Christ. But to hear him talk about it, he was more internally free in that prison cell than he ever was when he was externally free. Once the Lord found him, he lost everything that was worth losing, and found everything that was worth finding.
It’s the last part that gets me: they are so afraid what they’ll lose by being set free, that they don’t dare ask to be set free. They don’t understand that losing (in this context) does not make you a loser, it makes you a finder.