Photo by Thanti Riess on Unsplash
I woke up at 3 AM, and I heard these words in my mind, as if in answer to the frustrated questions I had asked earlier:
Take up your cross and follow.
It's easy to forget—when you live in this world—that a Christian's ultimate goal is not self-actualization. It is not being the “best version of myself” or “being all that I can be” or “fulfilling my potential” or living my “best life now.”
In fact, scripture warns me that the more I seek my own self-actualization, the more it will elude me.
This is one of the paradoxes of Christianity. I must die to myself in order to live. I must give in order to receive. I must “love not my life unto the death” in order to gain life eternal.
These are riddles, and I'm not sure that I know how to make them plain. I didn't understand them for the longest time. I'm still working on understanding them.
My cross isn't burdensome. Yes, there is weight to it, and part of that weight is whatever suffering I am enduring in the moment.
On the other hand, Christ's burden is light, and when I come to Him with my suffering and struggles, so often He takes them away or makes them lighter and easier to bear. As Keith Green put it, “in a way, my life is full of burdens...but in a way, you carry them for me...”
If anything, the weight of my cross feels like a corrective to my tendency to be selfish. It is a good kind of discomfort—kind of like lifting weights when you haven't had a workout in a while.
But the ultimate purpose of my taking up my cross is not so much that I feel the weight of it but that I die on it.
I know. It sounds morbid.
But it's actually wonderfully liberating.
I die to the old self: to the painful, demanding, grasping, unsettled, indecisive, double-minded, self-indulgent, unholy self.
Scripture uses strong words about this old self: Mortify—crucify—kill.
Honestly, it feels great. Yes, it hurts for a minute. But here I am: I'm not dead; I'm very much alive. But I feel much better! All I've let behind is that old carcass—didn't want it anyway.
I've left behind my self-determination, my self-will, my self-absorption.
So what is left?
Still me, but lighter. Without some of that junk. The heaviness. The artificiality. The baggage I've accumulated over the years. I am free to follow the Holy Spirit as He leads. Amenable to correction.
I am content with things as they are.
I give up my plans for my life (they've grown tiresome anyway) and I ask Him, what does He want to do with my life? What does He want to do in and through me?
What if it's insignificant at all? What if it's nothing at all?
Doesn't matter because I trust that He knows best and that He will lead me.
When I was young I misunderstood. I thought the taking up of my cross meant that I killed anything good and beautiful in my life. I have learned from painful experience that this isn't what it means—that the good and beautiful things are gifts of God to be received with gratitude and treasured, not to be killed. That taking up my cross is not an act of self-injury but of surrender and trust.
I've had many bitter years because of my false beliefs.
But the cross is the cure for bitterness, too.
There is a story in the Old Testament about the Hebrew children coming to a spring with bitter, undrinkable water. The people complained to Moses, and the Lord showed him a log. Moses threw the log into the water and the bitter water became sweet.
Similarly, when I embrace the wood of the cross and let it enter my soul, the bitterness is cured.
And tomorrow, I get to take up my cross again.
“If anyone wants to be my follower, they must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me”(Luke 9:23).
Beautiful read, Jessamyn, and filled with healing truth. Thank you!