The Cross: A burden or a blessing?

"Oh, I am soo burdened with this cross that I have to bear right now... It is weighing soo heavy on me. I don't know if I can make it one... more... step... Every morning I wake up and put that cross back on my shoulder and crawl my way through one more day. But thankfully God is with me! I know that He'll see me through; he is the one who gave me this cross, after all. It was he who said that I must take up my cross in order to be his disciple. So here I am, just plugging away, hoping I can survive one more day of this arduous cross-bearing life."

Hmmm. Sounds like the perfect model of abundant life! Is that what Christ really meant by 'take up your cross and follow me? I don't think so... He says that his yoke is easy and his burden is light! He says, "Come to me and I will give you rest!" Rest? Easy? Light? Wow. Are those words that describe your life? For most Christians, those words are a far cry from reality!

But wait, how is it even possible to have rest if we must carry a cross around with us everywhere we go? This is a hard life! We have temptation thrown at us from every direction. We have circumstances in our lives that are not to our own choosing. We have giant trials looming on the horizon everywhere we look, or we are in the midst of one now. Rest? There's no rest for the wicked! is the phrase that gets bantered about. No, there will be no rest until I get to heaven. Sigh.

So sad. That is not what Christ intended at all. This cross-bearing is not another 'chore' to add to our Christian check-list!! (or in this case, the ultimate Christian chore!) Nor is is suffering hardships for Jesus' sake (although that will happen!) The meaning here is so much deeper! So much better!

The cross was an instrument of death and total sacrifice. This cross that Christ asks us to bear is the cross of 100% surrender and sacrifice of our lives to him.

Romans 12:1-2 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. 2And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

This is a life of complete abandon to God, even unto death! In fact, the death of self. With self removed from the picture, Christ is free to live out his life through us. We are FREE to REST in him.

This is not a life of defeat, or a life of unbearable burdens. This is a life of attaining all of my hearts desires! For, I find that as I take up my cross in pursuit of him, he gives me all the desires of my heart. The very things that I once viewed as burdens are transformed into blessings! The things I once counted gain, I now see are worthless! My view point changes drastically. And I am victorious! I am free! I am living the abundant life he had planned for me from the very beginning.

If only I had never viewed that cross as one more thing I had to do every day, I could have been enjoying this life sooo much sooner!

When it all seems to happen at once......

August 21, 2007

So life is kinda just going along... everything's OK... good even! And then bang! It happens. Something goes wrong. It may not be a big thing, it may not be a terrible thing. But it happens. And you are thinking, "Man, that was bad luck, but God's in control, so it's all good." And you go on with your life like nothing occurred until it happens again. Only this time it's something a little worse... a bit harder to ignore. You shrug your shoulders and say, "life's like that." and move on as though everything's OK, while under the surface you are wondering what is going on. But of course you can handle this and everything will be back to normal soon. And then BAM it hits you and you are practically surrounded with problems that are beyond your control and you feel like you are sinking deeper and deeper. "What happened to that fabulous high I was on just days ago? If only I could go back in time..." Because of course on this side of things everything that happened before looks like a mountaintop experience! And you struggle to gain control of the situation but find other things taking control of you: depression, frustration, hopelessness, anger. And it really doesn't matter if this is the pettiest group of problems you have ever faced or the most difficult because at this moment they loom over you like Mt. Everest and all you can think of is that you are going to be smashed beneath their weight at any moment. Funny, because when that first little thing went wrong at the beginning your first response was to give it to God, but now He's the farthest thing from your mind as you struggle to escape. At this point absolutely everything that happens is an irritation to you no matter what it is. Someone comes along and mentions to you that God can help you with what you are going through and you tell them, "Of course I know He can!" While you think to yourself that you still have enough strength left to figure everything out and "How dare they think that I need God as if I'm not a good Christian?" Things begin to spiral from here as that Mt. Everest pile of problems start to crumble and at this point you may even begin to blame God, because let's face it, you are running out of people to blame. And then there is Jesus, unbeknownst to you, patiently waiting for the word of faith so that He can step in and take control. Waiting for you to look up to Him and say, "I can't do this anymore. I need you to do it through me. Take all this anger and frustration and depression and fill me with your joy in the midst of tribulation. Let me take these trials as from you."

And they are from Him, for He brings those things into our lives to bring us to the end of ourselves, to put us at the point of total dependency on Christ. He does this so that we will live a life completely surrendered to His will, whether it leads to things that we enjoy or things that we do not. Sound familiar? It should, for this is the life of the cross. Jesus said, "Not my will but thine be done" as he went to the cross and "He who knew no sin became sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God." This was not an easy thing for Christ to do. He stepped aside from all the majesty and glory of heaven for this purpose. But in that he was surrendered to total dependency on the Father He endured the trials and tribulations of the flesh even to the cross! He was our example. Wow. How He loved us! And now we are crucified with Him. So we should live like it. Surrender to Him. When everything hits the fan, instead of freaking out, turn to Him. That's what He desires.

But sadly, most Christians are stuck at the bottom of Mt. Everest. They are terrified of what it means to give that mountain to Christ, and so they never do. What does it mean? If we have faith as small as a mustard seed it will remove mountains. So yes, it absolutely can remove our problems, but it's not just a magic potion. There is more to it than that. It means giving of self. Giving of everything! And that is what we all fear most. We love ourselves and our stuff more than we love a life free of the trial that we are going through. And so we are stubborn and fight through our troubles on our own. But it will never work. You know what Christ does with self? He makes it better! Really, He does! So take the leap of faith. Cry out "Save Me!! I can't do it Father! I need you to live through me Jesus! I am helpless, hopeless and worthless! Here I am, take all that I am and fix it!" And that is a prayer he will hear.

But what if you are where I am right now... you've done that. You've surrendered to him. And now, here you are maybe months, years later and everything seems to be hitting the fan again. And maybe you are responding in the same way. Don't beat yourself up over the head! We all make mistakes. (Yep... that's me!) Jesus sends those things into our lives to keep us on our toes, to test our level of surrender, to give us a chance to grow spiritually. It's a test! But luckily it's not a pass or fail thing. If we do well we get to advance in our relationship with him a bit (you get to say "Yea! I'm really yielded to the Spirit right now!") And if we panic we learn that there is something in our lives that we are holding on to that we need to hand over to Jesus. (and we say "Man, I can't believe I was doing that, I better take care of that right away!,) So either way we advance in our Spiritual walk!

BTW... don't hold onto those things that you need to hand over to Jesus for a long time. Cuz it's really a strain on your relationship. When you sit down to talk there's always something that your're trying to avoid like a white elephant in the room and truly it grieves Him. It fills the room with an atmosphere of sadness. It even affects ability to worship. Stubbornness is not a good quality in any relationship, especially with Jesus (Rebecca!!!!)

So... curious about what's happening right now in my life? I have ovarian cysts that are popping and hurt like crazy, these painful cysts have moved to my breasts, my insurance runs out the end of this month and my husband doesn't have benefits at his job, my best friend has lung cancer, Chris ran his $200 cell phone through the washing machine and we did not have insurance on it and now we have to replace it, we got a flat tire today, oh... and all four tires on the car need replaced. And yep... you guessed it, I panicked a bit. Hence this blog reminding myself of Christ's place in everything!