Jesus says: "If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him ... take up his cross and follow me" (Matthew 16:24). He does not say: "Make a cross" or "Look for a cross." Each of us has a cross to carry. There is no need to make one or look for one. The cross we have is hard enough for us! But are we willing to take it up, to accept it as our cross?
Maybe we can't study, maybe we are handicapped, maybe we suffer from depression, maybe we experience conflict in our families, maybe we are victims of violence or abuse. We didn't choose any of it, but these things are our crosses. We can ignore them, reject them, refuse them or hate them. But we can also take up these crosses and follow Jesus with them.Henri Nouwen, from Bread for the Journey
The truth of this has been so clear since getting back yesterday. All sorts of things have poured in on the clean and shining peace I returned with, obscuring and distorting the vision God had given me over those five days away at Compton Durville. Other people's computer problems that they needed urgent help with, meetings, emails... and yet these fiddly and uninspiring distractions must be the cross I seem to have been given to carry. It's no good fretting about them (though I do), no good feeling that if I had a nobler, more heroic cross, then I could bear it with good grace. As one follower of St Francis used to say, "It's always the wrong cross, Brother - always the wrong cross!"
4 comments:
What an idea--the wrong cross!
Yes, we do always seem to end up with the cross that is most chafing to bear. But those are the kind that are most transformative.
The wrong cross indeed! You have no idea how much I needed to see this today.
And maybe every day.
Pax my brother.
Haha, yes, the wrong cross. If only our crosses could be the cool sort - things dramatic, evoking attention and consternation :)
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