The Glory of Losing My Salvation
- Carlos Padilla
- Jun 27
- 4 min read
by. Carlos Padilla
Often, I feel the need to lose my salvation, at least the version that I try to control comfortably. Not due to its lack of reality or beauty, but because I tend to tame it. To capture it. To colonize it. To memorialize it and construct a tower out of it. I am realizing that God, in accordance with the boundless riches of His grace and mercy, topples His hoarded promises I have made into idols.
The story of Abraham scares me. In Genesis 12, God calls Abraham to leave everything familiar behind: his country, his family, and his story. God is not providing him with a money- back guarantee or a comprehensive five-year plan; rather, He is presenting a novel experience characterized by a journey into a state of vulnerability. God says, “Abraham, go to the land and I will show you.” Abraham is asked to cut himself off from his past and is sent into the wilderness with merely a whisper of a promise: a seed, a son—Isaac. Then, as soon as this promise begins to grow facial hair, God asked for it back. In Genesis 22, God asks Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, the promise, the seed, and the embodiment of salvation for all humanity, representing what God said would come to fruition. Now, Abraham must leave behind not just the past, but also the future. Abraham is asked to murder the charter of salvation, “leaving himself and mankind nothing but death and hell.”1 In Abraham’s heart, this mountain is not merely an obedient checkpoint; instead, it represents a steep road up into God-forsakenness.
What kind of salvation is this?
It is salvation that asks us to surrender not just what we fear, but what we love. However,
this is not solely Abraham's journey; it is ours too. I frequently find it challenging to hold lightly the gifts bestowed by God, particularly those that seem like fulfilled prayers. Abraham teaches us that true salvation is not merely a static possession; it is a pilgrimage—a call from God to lead in the places we can’t fathom him being. It is not an upward rise towards security, but rather a plunging descent inward, into the darkest and most shameful parts of the soul, the places we hide, hate, and think are beyond mercy. Not at the peak of our spiritual facades, but in the wreckage, we wished He would never see. We are just like Abraham, encountering daily temptations to colonize the grace we have been given, transforming yesterday’s manna into a mere trophy of the past. Similarly to Abraham on the mountain when hope seemed gone, God not only met him there but also revealed Himself as the God who does not demand sacrifice but provides it. Miraslav Volf writes, “Faith is the way we as receivers relate appropriately to God as the giver. It is empty hands held open for God to fill.” God yearns to meet us in those unexplored places of provision where the Spirit keeps calling: “come further.”
This is the glory of losing my salvation: realizing that what I thought disqualified me is the very place God calls holy. That's the scandal of grace: God isn’t afraid or repelled by my most vulnerable places. He chooses them. These are the places where we encounter a salvation that continues to save. This is a moment to continue progressing and believing, carrying a heart filled with gratitude for the past and a hope for the future.
My Prayer: For the Glory of Losing My Salvation
O God who called Abraham up the mountain,
I, too, carry the promise in trembling hands.
And like him, I lift the knife -
not to destroy, but to obey -
daring to believe You are still good at the edge of loss.
Meet me where I fear You’ve forsaken me.
Let the blade stop in mercy.
Let the fire reveal You.
Let the loss be holy. Restore to me the joy of your salvation.
Amen.
Calvin, John. Commentaries on the First Book of Moses Called Genesis. Edited by David W. Torrance and Thomas F. Torrance. Translated by William B. Johnston. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1963.
Volf, Miroslav. Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2005.
Carlos Padilla is the kind of theologian who loves a good footnote and a good meme. He recently graduated with an M.A. in Theology and Culture from St. Stephen’s University, where he explored the intersection of theology, peace, and justice—especially how union with Christ and the Spirit reshapes how we live, not just what we believe. Carlos leads The Kingdom, a church in Omaha for misGits, mystics, and anyone tired of religious performance. He’s currently preparing for PhD studies in systematic theology and is always up for a deep convo over coffee (or tacos). He does life with his brilliant wife Beth and their Gluffy theologian-in- training, Lincoln the husky.