Sacrifice

We honor the sacrifice of soldiers who risk their lives. We talk about missionaries who gave up everything to reach people for God. But when we speak of sacrifice, do we think of it as something extraordinary, or something that should mark our daily lives?

What if sacrifice is not supposed to be the abnormal state?

Scripture calls us to offer a “sacrifice of thanksgiving” (Psalm 116:17). I used to breeze past that phrase without thinking about it. Thanksgiving as sacrifice. If it costs you nothing, it’s not sacrifice. The Hebrew word zabach literally means to slaughter, to kill. This thanksgiving offering costs something. It’s not the breezy “thanks” we toss around when life is good. It’s the gut-wrenching choice to thank God when everything around you is falling apart.

My entire adult life has been riddled with tragedy and difficulties. Sacrifice became necessity before I even recognized what was happening.

Married young, going to classes 8a-4p, working 12a-8a, while Donna dealt with a miscarriage, a broken tailbone, and I hobbled around in a boot immobilizing my foot. Sleep? Four hours if I was lucky, down from ten before marriage. We ate dented cans of tuna, no-label vegetables, day-old bread, and cheap pasta. We had nothing.

I thanked God for a beautiful wife, for the family we would have, and for two hots and a cot.

When I graduated, I worked 72-hour weeks for three years at a software company. I knew I had to put in the extra time to build a better life for my family.

I thanked Jesus for my job, my wife, and the big family we would have.

When my job was going under and we moved to Atlanta for new work, leaving behind all our friends and church, uprooting everything we knew.

I thanked Jesus for the new job, for giving us a son, for my wife, and for the big family we were promised.

Even when the money got much better running my own business, we gave away so much that we had nothing saved for retirement.

I thanked God for our contracts, for food on the table, for my wife and son, and for the big family we would have.

When we miscarried Emily, my business burned down, contracts disappeared, and I had to take a very low paying job.

I thanked God for the job, for a lovely home that kept us dry, for my wife and two children.

When I had to sell the big house, the fast boat, and restructure our debt.

I thanked Jesus for a warm home, a wife and two kids, and a job with good friends.

When my only son, Caleb, died.

I thanked God for my wife, my daughter, and the new friends who helped us through an unimaginable time.

When I went jobless for seven months.

I thanked Jesus for my warm home, the home equity that kept us afloat, my wife and daughter, and the contracts that helped us through.

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Job understood this. When he lost everything in a single catastrophic day, including children, livestock, and health, he didn’t curse God. He tore his robe, shaved his head, and fell to the ground in worship. “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21).

I’ve never pretended my responses were as pious as Job’s. I’ve screamed at God. I’ve wrestled with Him in the dark. But I kept thanking Him. Sometimes through gritted teeth. Sometimes with tears running down my face. Sometimes with words that sounded hollow even to my own ears.

That’s what makes it a sacrifice.

When your child dies and you still whisper “thank you” for the years you had together, that’s sacrifice. When the business burns down and you still say “thank you” for a roof over your head, that’s sacrifice. When you’re eating no-label vegetables because you can’t afford anything else and you still say “thank you” for food, that costs something.

Hebrews 13:15 tells us to “continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise, the fruit of lips that confess his name.” Continually. Not just when things are good. Not just when the blessings are obvious. Through the catastrophes. Through the grief. Through the seven-month unemployment and the loss of children and the dreams that turn to ash.

The true measure of our worship is revealed in the fire. Anyone can thank God when life is easy. The real question is whether we can still find something, anything, to thank Him for when everything we counted on has been stripped away.

Job’s wife told him to curse God and die. His friends accused him of secret sin. But Job clung to his faith with bloody knuckles, saying, “Though He slay me, yet will I hope in Him” (Job 13:15).

Maybe sacrifice isn’t supposed to be rare. Maybe it’s supposed to be the rhythm of our lives. Not the dramatic, once-in-a-lifetime gesture, but the daily choice to thank God in the middle of the struggle. To bless His name when blessing seems absurd.

I don’t know why my life has been a series of spectacular catastrophes. I don’t know if it’s a Job-like test or just the random cruelty of a fallen world. But I know this: every time I’ve chosen to thank God in the wreckage, something shifted. Not my circumstances. Me.

“He who offers a sacrifice of thanksgiving honors Me.”

Psalm 50:23

The sacrifice of thanksgiving honors God precisely because it costs us something. It says, “You are still good, even when my life doesn’t look like it.” It says, “You are still sovereign, even when I can’t see Your hand.” It says, “I trust You, even when trust makes no sense.”

That’s worship. Not the easy praise when everything is going well, but the costly offering laid down in the ashes.