Cross Carrying Sacrificers

Yesterday I went on a tangent about sacrificial living. Well, it ain’t over 😊! After I realized that God requires obedience rather sacrifice, my life began to unravel before my eyes. That’s because God began to show me that I’ve always GIVEN and LIVED sacrificially. Always. I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t sacrificing.

My first sacrifice was in junior high when I started sacrificing my sexual purity just to fit in. That led to my next sacrifice when I started sacrificing my intelligence in high school. I’d literally be tardy to class and roam the halls so that my friends couldn’t see that I was going into the AP classes. That eventually led me to sacrificing my college dreams because instead of finishing my college credit exams my senior year, I hung out with my dope selling friends which would then morph into me sacrificing my desire for a good man and trading him for the many dope boys I dated for decades which ultimately led me to sacrificing my body and dignity.

Though I’ve been abstinent for 19 years, at 51, I’m still sacrificing my peace, happiness, and self-respect so that others can keep theirs. I’ve sacrificed my time, dignity and as you found out in the last issue, my money - just so that others can feel supported while simultaneously sacrificing what my business objectives. I have sacrificed so much that to do anything other than sacrifice, seems sacrilegious.

But on yesterday, the first day of 2022, I realized that that was never God’s will for my life. Not saying that God doesn’t require us to sacrifice because we are required to pick up our cross and die daily. But what I now see is that there are people who take advantage of cross carriers. And as we also discovered on yesterday, the Lord Himself made it a point to check almost every Pharisee, Sadducee and anybody else that put their sacrificial, cross carrying expectations on Him.

But getting back to the point. There are those who’ll try to take advantage of people like us cross carrying sacrificers. I saw those people in my own life. In my family. On my job. On social media and in the news. I saw people were LETTING me do things. Letting me do things that I shouldn’t be doing and that weren’t apart of my job description. Such as coworkers allowing me to complete cases that they should have done. People letting me not giving me things when they knew they were mine. Legislators letting time back while the American public suffered. Maybe in your own life, there are those who let you pick up the check. Let you take out the trash. People will let you do things and because you’re so SACRIFICIAL and SELFLESS, you’ll do them. All the while you’re being taken advantage of and abused, simply because they let you be sacrificial. And this is what we need to put a stop to in 2022.

Our sacrificial way of living has bred laziness and abuse amongst our family and peers. Meanwhile, we’re tired and foolishly thinking God is pleased when He is side-eyeing us the entire time and looking us upside our heads saying, ‘I didn’t tell you to do that!” which could be the same as letting them do what they’re supposed to.

I’m sorry I was long-winded with this, but I hope this helps you my dear reader. For those of you who live sacrificially, check with the Lord and see if this is the year that you too stop living sacrificially. Check with Him to see if you too need to start LETTING folk do what God told them to do as opposed to you doing it instead.

Pray this with me: Heavenly Father, please forgive me for automatically defaulting to sacrifice mode instead of checking with You to see if I’m being obedient. All this sacrificing has left me frustrated, and now I know why. Lord, I know there are times when I must sacrifice, and for You and Your people, I most gladly will. But when You’d prefer me to obey Your leading and let others do what You are telling them to do then I ask that You check me so that I don’t get in Your way and burnout physically, financially and spiritually. I thank You for it. In Jesus’ name.

Copyright 2022 © Real Issues Publishing®. All rights reserved.