Losing Can Be Winning

Yesterday I attended a memorial service for an elderly gentleman from our church.  Then I came home and watched the news and discovered that today is the 6-month anniversary of a terrible landslide in our area that claimed 43 lives.  So today I’m thinking about the different losses that we go through in life.  There are many different kinds of losses – loss of life, loss of a job, loss of a friendship, loss of a home or other assets, loss of ministry, loss of health, loss of memory, loss of purpose, loss of innocence . . . the list goes on and on.  Most of us have experienced one or more of these in our lives so far.  As Christians, trusting God is essential through the process of coping with any loss – and yet often the most difficult thing to do.  All loss brings the same result to those affected: the experience of brokenness, emptiness, and feelings of hopelessness.  But how do we move beyond these initial results and allow God to work in us through the loss?  How can losing be turned into winning? 

We are called to face loss with faith so that the changes that occur in us result in growth.  You see, change is an inevitable result of loss, but growth is not.  Loss changes who we are and makes it necessary for us to redefine “normal” – figuring out who we are without whatever we lost.  The apostle Paul taught us in 2 Corinthians 10:5 one of the most important things we can do when we face loss: “ . . . we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”  So that’s the starting point.  Don’t let the enemy steal your thoughts!

After that, it’s all about perspective.  We humans usually approach earthly life as something that we need to hang onto or cling to; but Jesus told us we shouldn’t do that (Luke 17:33).  Clinging to this life means trying to escape physical loss and feeding a materialistic and individualistic perspective on life instead of an eternal one.  A proper eternal perspective recognizes that whatever we have on earth is temporary and that everything we gain on earth is a gift from God to be used for his glory..  Our natural earthly perspective makes us act as if we have a “right” to the gains God has given us, which leads to our interpretation of losses as injustice or unfairness.  This difference in perspective is critical because where it leads is the difference between hope and hopelessness.  When we experience loss, either response is a possible outcome. 

One more thought for today: When we experience loss, healing comes when we allow God’s presence to fill the hole that is left in our lives by the loss.  Did you notice that this requires action on our part?  But, when we choose to trust God’s presence in our lives and rely on him to take the place of what we lost, we receive another gift from him: the gift of contentment.  Let’s agree to trust God through our losses and not allow them to have the final word!