Time as a Sacrifice in Spirituality

When people think of sacrifices in spiritual practices, their minds jump to gory visuals. Pig’s blood. Dead chickens on a street corner. Joe Goldberg playing butcher in a storage facility.

A sacrifice is giving up something you appreciate in exchange for something you want or need more. A sacrifice in the “olden days” typically included animals because of their value during that time and in that society. Goats could feed a family, or be sold for money. When a practitioner sacrificed an animal, they were sacrificing food on the table. (Some modern practices do regard the blood to be important for “life force energy,” but those are very specific cases and usually in closed practices.) Today, some spiritual people might choose to fast instead.

Tithing in Christian practices is an example of how sacrifice isn’t always gory. The believer gives up 10% of potential purchases for themselves and their family. A full-time receptionist who makes $12/hour and tithes the traditional amount will sacrifice $48 a week. Depending on their living situation, that could be a sacrifice as superficial as a gel manicure or as important as groceries.

TIME IS YOUR MOST VALUABLE ASSET
In the modern day, we value two things: money and time. For an example of that correlation, just scroll through a job board. Most people in our society survive by being assigned an hourly value. A dental office receptionist can make $12 - $23/hour. A valet attendant can make a base pay of $10/hour with the expectation of tips. An entry-level accountant can make $60,000/year. The more time an hourly worker sacrifices, the more money they will receive. The more years a salary worker devotes to a company or industry, the more their salary will increase annually.

YOUR TIME IS YOUR LIFE
As humans, we experience time as a limited resource. You will never be as young as you are today. The minutes you spend reading this Medium article are not refundable. Time is more than minutes on a clock, it’s your life ticking by. This is why volunteering your time as a sacrifice in a magical working is so powerful. When you offer your time to a deity or a cause or whatever is relevant to your goal, you are giving up a portion of your life in exchange.