‘Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple’ –Jesus in Luke 14
What are you carrying in your hands today? Under what are you burdened? What is weighing you down right now? If your hands are gripped around anything other than a cross, you need to let go.
Rather than ask, ‘What?’ let me ask, ‘Why?’ Why are you carrying that weight around today? Why are you shouldering that burden? Why is that thing weighing you down right now?
I imagine that on this journey we call life, the things we carry with us are the things that we value most. They are the things we believe we must bring with us rather than leave them behind. So, ‘Why?’
Why do you think that working 80 hours a week is what you have to do? Why do you believe that there are too many things that you have to do and too few hours? Why do minor things become major headaches?
If I were to put forth a guess, perhaps it’s that you find your identity in the things that you have and do. Or that you would like to. The good news is that you’re right. That which you cling to will be what determines the worth of your life. The bad news is that you can ‘have it all’, and have absolutely nothing at the same time.
In the struggle for significance, our biggest obstacle is (and always will be) our sinful selves. Much of what we choose to carry around with us is an attempt to outweigh the bad with good. The problem is that our bad selves and those good things are weighed on different scales.
Our sins are not compared to our good deeds. They are matched up against God’s eternal perfection. Erecting an entire world of ‘goodness’ apart from a separation from our sins is futile. And the only place that this can be found is on a cross. Our cross. Daily.
And here a mystery takes place. A mystery that cannot be unraveled with human reason, but only by faith. The mystery is that as we take our cross to bear it we find the load already lifted. As we set our feet to move it forward we find we are the ones being moved. As we go to take our place on its beams we find them occupied by another. We find Jesus in our place, on our cross, bearing our burdens.
This is what makes struggling under the burden of ‘things’ and ‘life’ so laughable. How clean does a house have to be to equal the work done by Jesus on your cross? How many hours at work does it take to accomplish the task that Jesus did on the cross? How many ‘good’ things can you try to carry to the scale to equal the weight of Jesus’s sacrifice for you? The only thing that matters in terms of significance is the cross. And at the cross we find Jesus.
So when life happens (and it always does) and you begin to feel burdened and weary, hear the words of Jesus as he says, ‘Come to me, and I will give you rest. My burden is light.’ Find your worth and identity solely in the cross born by Jesus. Cling to it with two hands. Allow no other ‘thing’ to wedge itself in and add an unnecessary burden to your soul. Be found daily and at the end of life with no other burden or claim on your soul but the cross you deserved and Jesus bore.
If there is any burden in your hands right now other than a cross, let it go.
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