DURING a recent impeachment trial, a humorous exchange occurred when a senator urged the prosecution, “Sana hindi kayo one-sided.” Both defense and prosecution rightly noted that being “one-sided” is their exact job. Each side exists to preserve their own turf or territory.
Our human nature’s instinct is to clutch what is ours and declare, “Mine!” Later, we build fences, guard our careers, and secure our territories. “To each his turf” captures this basic human drive for self-preservation.
Self-preservation is not inherently wrong, but danger arises when it becomes our absolute priority. When self-interest comes first, moral lines blur, and the greater good vanishes.
In business, executives suppress safety issues or ignore environmental damage to maximize their earnings — securing their turf at public expense. Whatever be the form and manner, basically, it is a paradigm of living for self above all others.
Human history is filled with leaders who fought to expand and defend their own turfs. Yet Jesus Christ reversed and dismantled that logic. He entered a world that was obsessed with territorial power, yet spent His life consistently surrendering His personal turf and domain.
Christ held no titles, commanded no armies, and owned no property. He lived not to preserve His own turf but lived all for God. “Not my will but Thine be done”, is what consumes Christ all His life. He completely yielded his human desires to the perfect plan and will of God the Father.
At Calvary, Christ demonstrated the ultimate contrast: where human nature demands, “I will guard my turf even if it costs you,” Christ declared, “I will lay down my life so that you may live.”
Now here is the real challenge: all persons who call themselves Christians and claims as the follower of Christ, there is no greater turf to protect but firstly Christ’s. Living for Christ and living only to defend our turf is contrary to Christ’s teachings. He said, “Those who wish to follow Me must first deny themselves (or lose your comfortable turf), take up their cross (making Christ’s turf be yours instead), and follow Me (finding your significance and purpose only in knowing and serving Christ).
All things considered, our turf that we so much live for is actually a run to a wrong direction, its security are but temporary and its pleasure just fleeting at best.
A life spent guarding our own interest offers a false promise. It yields anxiety instead of security, and isolation instead of freedom. True liberation requires stepping past the fortress of self to discover a profound paradox: the deepest joy in life is never found in what we hoard, not in securing the uncertainties of our own turfs, but in what we freely surrender to find what is His best for us to live for.
“For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.”
— Matthew 16:25/PN
