WHY would I call myself, “Loser?”

Hell, even John Lennon called himself a “Loser,” so why NOT?

But THAT’s not the reason I’ve embraced the name “Loser.”

This started last week when our former pastor jokingly said to me, “C’mere, Loser,” when he saw me after I’d texted him earlier in the morning that Karen and I were leaving his church but that I wanted to swing by for a “so long for now” hug and handshake. He had said to me that he hated reading my text but understood why we were leaving and said to come on by the church around noon and then added, “No hard feelings.”

But even though I had laughed at his pre-hug joke, it kind of stuck in my craw, as they say. And I wondered all weekend, “AM I a ‘Loser?’”

I decided that I MUST be, because only “Losers” ask themselves questions like that. Huh?

Anyway, I had an epiphany yesterday . . . which you know if you are a regular reader of this blog, which, by the way, you SHOULD be, but I digress . . . when I realized that before my possibly imaginary Friend, Jesus Christ, found me, saved my soul, and made me His, what the world terms a “Loser” is exactly what I was after twenty years on this planet and having been raised right by loving parents and provided every advantage in life only to throw it all away in an insatiable search for nothing but sex, drugs, and rock & roll, all of which I’ve described in various posts on this blog.

AND every good thing that I have or that has happened to me in the forty six years since then has all come from Him, not me.

Outside of Jesus Christ, I’d most likely be in prison or dreadfully diseased or dead.

Jesus is the One who has given me Life, and not just any old life, but a very, very, very, very Abundant Life, including a beautiful bride who has stayed with me and loved me for almost forty three years now, our son and daughter who love us and who we so very much love, our grandson and granddaughter who love us like our children love us and who we love like we love our own children, a lifetime of worthwhile labor in various jobs that have not only provided for our few financial needs but have also all benefitted the community in which we live, and then there’s a lifetime of music and literature and art and faith, hope, love and real joy, far more than I could describe in a lifetime of trying to write it all down!

This morning, I remembered that Jesus once said something about losing one’s life in order to GAIN HIS REAL LIFE.

“Then Jesus said to His disciples, ‘If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.’” 

So that’s the real reason, I’m adopting as my new kinda-gangsta moniker, “Loser.”

It’s because I want to be like Jesus . . . who is bigger than John Lennon, by the way!