Opportunity Cost of Oxygen

Opportunity cost is the economic cost of what you choose to do as opposed to all the things you could have otherwise done.

The opportunity costs of the cross include Jesus not calling down hundreds of thousands of angels to come to his aid and prevent his death. His expense was his life, the blood of his own body poured out as the price of our sin. He gave up every alternative opportunity he could have had, as God incarnate, to die a cruel death-- bearing our punishment for sin.

In the inverse of self defense, He chose to do the most powerfully charitable thing for our eternal benefit. He agreed within himself, with God and the Spirit, as Revelation says, to be "slain since the foundation of the world". He "had us in mind," as they say.

When we talk about putting on our oxygen masks before helping our children as the plane of life rapidly descends, we are talking about helping ourselves to help them. The opportunity cost is not at our own expense at that time, but that of our children. Given that cognition precedes behavior, the only way this truly benefits them is to keep them in mind during this time of aiding ourselves to ultimately benefit them. In other words, we need to follow through with getting their masks on afterward.

While this appears obvious, how many times do we do the "self care" for ourselves, letting the needs of our children slide habitually from day to day?

How much vastly greater is our Father than us as parents?

Let Him live in us today for the laying down of our lives, and for the beautiful resurrection of lost opportunities and goals to love more deeply and immediately.