Lose your life to save it? Isn’t that backwards?

‭Luke 17:33 NIV‬
[33] Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it.
Often what Jesus said feels backwards. Death is gain, to lose your life will save it. It all sounds backwards. But that’s because Jesus spoke from the lense of Heaven, where we see everything through this world. It’s funny to think of other cultures sometimes. There are so many things our culture does that a different cultures wouldn’t understand and vise versa. It makes me think of when I was in school and one of my friends was from a different country. When I was kid, giving your friend a friendly pat on the arm was a form affection. If you weren’t friends it wasn’t, but I was used to a friend walking up and giving me a pat on the shoulder or arm, it was just a thing you did. Replaced rather soon by the high five and then the fist bump.
I recall a day when I gave my friend a gentle pat on the shoulder when I said ‘hi’ and passed her in the hall. In no time at all I found myself face to face with a teacher and my friend who was crying. I was very confused. My teacher got mad at me for hitting her. I was horrified and couldn’t figure out why my friend had made up this lie. Then it came around to that morning when I had patted her on the shoulder as I walked past and said good morning. It was not something they did where she was from. It was culturally inappropriate in her original country and seen as an act of violence.
I repeat. We all did this. It was a friendly gesture. But not in her country. She was new to our land. She didn’t understand our ways. And if I’m being honest, this particular friend never did understand our ways and we all who spent time with her had to walk on eggs shells so we didn’t accidentally do something that was not okay where she was from. That made life a bit complicated. She very soon only had myself and one other who would still be with her at lunch because she would run to the teacher about everything and anything we did. I consider that it wasn’t simply cultural but perhaps just her personality, but I’m getting off topic.
We see everything through the lense of this world, this place we live and been raised in. But God sees everything through His world. Heaven. He also sees this world the way it was supposed to be and the way it is now thanks to our sinful ways. Because God speaks in a way that is different from the way we expect things to be, we easily get confused or angry. Many rear up at the ‭Mark 8:[35] For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. Statement. Why? Because to our culture it makes no sense. We are a self love, self serve society, being told to do anything for anyone else is heresy to us. Then we become offended and run to the teacher saying we’ve been hurt. But God is speaking from right perspective. His. If we die to ourselves and lose our lives to serve Him better to push His word further forward, then we are living correctly. Because if we live only for Jesus we will find ourselves more satisfied then if we live to serve us. It seems backwards. But that’s because we are still learning how to live as citizens of Heaven and not of thos world any longer.