Prayer and taking up your cross

Read Mark 8:34-37

³⁴ He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. ³⁵ For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. ³⁶ For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? ³⁷ Indeed, what can they give in return for their life?

 

           "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me."  The words are in your book, Lord, and although I look away, they refuse to go away.  The cross-bearing part of discipleship will not disappear.  It stops nearby, confusing me, troubling me,    nudging me. 

Teach me that taking up a cross does not mean assuming that the harder way will always be the more faithful way, simply because it is harder.  A punishing of me that serves no useful purpose is masochism, not martyrdom.

Teach me that taking up a cross does not mean enduring bravely the normal cares and trials of life.  Sickness, the infirmities of age, family problems -- these are burdens, not crosses.

Teach me that taking up a cross does not mean leaving no room in my life for joy and laughter and play.  Recesses from cross bearing are more than just permissible; they are necessary.

Teach me that taking up a cross means understanding that no one is entitled to walk through life carrying far less than his or her strength can handle, while others are carrying far more.

Teach me that taking up a cross means taking on some small piece of the pain of the world and hardship when my doing it will lighten the load others are carrying.

Teach me that taking up a cross means taking on my fair share of the pain of the world because I choose to, not because I have to. 

                Listening when someone needs to be heard and entering into his or her pain, speaking the word that needs to be spoken when speaking it does not win friends, a gift of time, a gift of money.  Crosses may take some of these shapes in my life.  Help me, I pray, to recognize them when they appear, and to walk toward them, not away from them.

                Amen.