Holding onto Life

"Where is it I was reading somebody condemned to death said or thought an hour before his death that if he had to live somewhere on a crag, on a cliff, on a narrow ledge where his two feet could hardly stand, and all around him there'd be the abyss, the ocean, everlasting darkness, everlasting solitude, and an everlasting storm, and he had to remain like that -- standing on a square yard of space -- all his life, a thousand years, an eternity, it would still be better to live like that than to die at the moment. To live and to live and to live and to live! No matter how you live, if only to live! How true that is! God, how true! What a scoundrel man is! And he's a scoundrel who calls him a scoundrel for that."
------Excerpt from Crime and Punishment by Fydor Dostoyevsky

We, as humans, have an intense desire to hold onto life. I can say that I would relinquish my life for many things, but I don't know if I really would. I can speak in ideals, but that has limited benefit. We hold onto life at many costs. Maybe this is what is so shocking about Jesus saying that we must lose our lives in order to gain them. It may sound good in theory, but when we come face to face with the daily implications of this decision, it seems that I want to hold on at all costs.
Thank God that we have a patient Savior who does not leave it up to us to become who we need to become. Only through the strong power of Jesus could I ever say that I am crucified with Christ.
I hope to do that today.
I hope to do that in Lithuania.
I hope to do that as a man.