Talking About Sacrifice

As a Christian every once in a while, a situation arises in your life or a friend's that directly reflect a certain Biblical story or principle, and later on that day or the next (sometimes for the first time in a long while), you end up reading that exact story or hearing about that exact principle while reading a daily devotional plan, listening to a sermon, or experiencing some other oddly random yet seemingly orchestrated scenario.

I was talking earlier with Yeye about how acts of sacrifice indicate the working of love. I was suggesting to her that the loaning of her most valuable possessions (in this case, a sweater) with the knowledge that those possessions may not be returned to her in the same condition, is an intense, Jesus-approved act of love. In the process of explaining this principle, I was thinking of the episodes throughout the Bible when the principle is illustrated, and I can remember thinking most concretely about the woman who pours expensive perfume on Jesus' head, much to the chagrin of his disciples.

Lo and behold, after my delightfully delicious Sabbath day nap, I got up and took a look at my devotional for the day, and the passage of scripture highlighted was Mark 14:1-26, which includes the story of the woman who pours the perfume on Jesus.

These moments of overlap between the Bible and the day-to-day tend to happen most often when Bible reading is happening regularly and when one is having frequent conversations about God's activity. I felt so much truth as I was speaking those words to Yeye earlier, and maybe this moment of merging is just one of those ways that God nods to me and says, "I am with you."