Sacrifice Is Not The Same As Suffering
Perhaps Paul Harvey said it best when he stated, “In times like these, we need to remember that there have always been times like these.” Unemployment, health concerns, economic turbulence; in one way or another we have been here before.
Amidst all that changes in our world, it is truth and principle that stays the same. One of the most enduring examples of the power of the human spirit committed to eternal values comes from World War II.
Victor Frankl was held as a prisoner in Auschwitz. His family had been murdered and he was starved and beaten. However, when the Allies liberated the camps Frankl was without bitterness, refusing to be held captive to hatred.
He would go on to write Man’s Search for Meaning, a chronicle of what he learned about human nature in the darkness of the concentration camp.
Asked how he lived with such peace and optimism after all he endured, he later shared his secret, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms, to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
There is much to learn from Frankl’s example, because no matter what takes place in life we can choose our response, we can choose the meaning we give to any event, and therein lays true power.
Emerson wrote, “A man is a hero, not because he is braver than anyone else, but because he is brave for ten minutes longer.” Indeed, there may always be times like this, but our response is an individual choice. So may we choose wisely, regardless of where we live or where life has taken us.
As Nely Galan shares, sacrifice is not the same as suffering. To sacrifice we voluntarily give up what we want in order to serve a greater good. To suffer means to feel helpless to make a change; and we can always make a change, whether it be in our thinking or in our putting someone else before ourselves.
As evangelist Terry Sisney shared, “Anybody can put on a pretty praise when the battles over. Anybody can praise God when the sickness is healed. Anybody can praise God when the marriage is restored and the family is mended. Anybody can praise God when you’ve got a good retirement, money in your wallet and money in the bank.”
“But I’m telling you, it takes something to shout in the face of the devil, it takes something to praise in the face of the doctors bad report, it takes something to shout when you don’t have two nickels to rub together, it takes something when you’re going through the fire, to lift your hands and lift your voice and say, I will praise him.”
“Don’t wait till the battles over. Shout now! Start in the dark with the walls closing in on you; start where you are laying in that hospital bed; start where you are at the bottom of that pit; start where you are in the middle of your pain; start where you are in the inner prison at midnight.”
That is true power, the power to choose one’s own way, right…this…moment.