My Obsession With Sidestepping My Cross
I don’t like pain. I don’t like to be inconvenienced. I don’t like to NOT be happy. I’ve got self-preservationist, do-what-I-want-to-do, live-the-American-dream, blood coursing through every vein in my body. And this is a problem for one who’s been asked to bleed out on a cross.
I’m a pastor, true, but more importantly, I’m a Christian. And Christians don’t get to sidestep their crosses, no matter how many self-help books masquerading behind Christian bestseller dust jackets say so.
Jesus didn’t mince words in Mark Chapter 8:34-35 when he said:
…”If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it.”
No apologies. No disclaimers. No soft delivery. Just a savior, right in the middle of laying it all on the line himself, asking His followers to do the same.
To be clear, this command for us to dip our shoulders beneath the weight of our personal crosses isn’t for the purpose of us earning our own salvation. Only the ultimate sacrifice of the spotless Lamb of God could do that.
No, the cross-bearing demanded of you and I has nothing to do with self-salvation and everything to do with discipleship.
And this is where we run into trouble sometimes.
Waaaah. My cross is too heavy. Waaah. My cross is giving me splinters. Waaah. My cross is bigger and heavier than his cross and her cross? It’s not fair, Jesus. I quit.
Paul told the church in Ephesus to stop being children. To just grow up already. And I often find myself needing that same rebuke. True, I might be a wise, old, sage when it comes to the fine art of church tradition, liturgy, and vain repetitions. But often I’m a bawling, fit-throwing, crayon-eating brat when it comes to cross bearing
It’s so much easier for me to read a book about being blessed and highly favored than it is to forgive someone who has sinned against me.
It’s much easier to YouTube my newest pet, rock-star preacher, in whom there is no guile than it is to submit myself to that real life, flesh and blood leaders who are over me in the Lord. Especially when they show their human side.
It’s so much easier to self-medicate with all manner of destructive habits in the name of Christian liberty than it is to take the full brunt of that sleepless-night-pain that Jesus uses to drive me closer to Him through suffering.
Yeah. Cross-bearing ain’t for children. It’s for disciples.
And by God’s grace, one of these days I’m going to grow up into one.
What About You?
Are you trying to sidestep your cross?
What behaviors or activities do you retreat to instead of facing your pain and suffering head-on?
What will it take for you to surrender to your personal cross?
Just as the resurrection was on the other side of Calvary, what payoff might be on the other side of your sacrifice?