We think we possess things by holding on to them. We own our house and our car and our cat and our certificates of deposit when we have free and unhindered use of them. If there’s a new lock on the door when you come home from work, you don’t possess our house.

We think that everything is like that, but that’s not true. We can possess some things rightly only if we willingly give them away. I don’t possess the knowledge that I acquire unless I share it. We possess some goods only by dispossession.

Maybe that’s how we possess everything. After all, Jesus tells us that life itself is like this: “He who has found his soul shall lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake shall find it.”

This seems like a paradox, but in one sense it’s commonsensical. If we protect ourselves from every danger and avoid every threat, we aren’t living. We try to hold onto life, and we strangle it by holding too tightly. We need to let go of life if we want to live.

But Jesus has something deeper in mind. We find our souls, our lives, only when we willingly pour ourselves out for Him. This is because He promises an abundant return on what we give. When we give life, He restores life, life infinitely more abundant than what we give.

Jesus’ words contain a promise, but they are also a sharp rebuke. If we try to keep ourselves to ourselves, if we refuse to expend ourselves for Him and for our neighbors, then we are not preserving life but losing it, and will ultimately lose it eternally.