Carrying Our Cross In a World of Selfishness

"Then Jesus said to his disciples, 'If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father's glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done.'"

Our cross.

Trusting God has been an issue of mine since Lindsay and I lost our twins. I struggled with believing that God has what is best for my life in mind. I have come to the conclusion that he does not, and I am fine with that. When I use the word "best," I am talking about the things of this world that are idolized - health, success, entertainment, popularity, and, possibly, my individual spiritual life. In light of that, he does not have what is best for me individually on his agenda. What is best for me is not what is always best for his Kingdom. His Kingdom is on his mind. If sacrificing me will further his Kingdom, then that is what needs to be done. If I am a faithful servant, then I am fine with that and spiritually I will always be secure.

Does that make God cold and heartless? I would not say that it does although it does teeter on it from our perspective. It rocks our selfish and individualistic view of life and the world around us. We are selfish from birth, nourished from bottles of selfishness as we grow up, and continue to indulge in selfishness as adults. We are so selfish that we fail to notice it. We want what is best for us, and we are focused on going after it. But Christ tells me to take up my cross. No longer am I supposed to look out for what is best for myself. I take up my cross and become a servant to others. Only in killing my interests will I actually find true spirituality. I think we all know the Christian language surrounding this concept but to actually live it makes us freaks in our churches and the communities we live in.

Rich Mullins once wrote,

"It seems that I always am and always have been an outsider. I've never really fit in. I was always too religious for my rowdy friends--they thought I was unbelievably hung up--and too rowdy for my religious friends--they were always praying for me."

I still struggle with why Luke and Logan had to die before breathing their first breath, but I need to be completely fine with God sacrificing soldiers for His Kingdom. God might not have directly caused their death (and he might have), but he could have prevented it. The responsibility is his; that is always the way it is with death. God has the power to heal and prevent death. We can try to comfort ourselves with saying it is better for the person dead to be where they are now, but that really brings no comfort to my selfish self. In that mindset (and my tendency to bring things to logical extremes), then I should kill little children and faithful Christians so that they can also be better off. What I have to reach is the point of being a faithful soldier who is focused on a cause bigger than just myself and content with whatever that brings my way.

My cross.