Take up Your Cross

Dear Readers:

I wish I could tell you that after God reignited the desire to blog in late 2018 that I returned to posting on a regular basis. Instead, I continued to allow the busyness of life to keep me away. In addition, the free writing time I did have I devoted to working on my book. Was it wrong that I spent time working on my book? No, but book writing is not the sole avenue that God wants to use the writing gift He gave me. As a result, once again, the desire to blog stirred within me.

Perhaps, you are thinking, “This is not the first time you said something like this. What makes this time different?” The remainder of this post will explain why this time is indeed different. My prayer is that something in the story of my journey back here is relatable to you in your own life.

This year, I went to my first ever writers’ conference called the Southern Christian Writers Conference. The conference was a great experience. God used several of the speakers to speak to me about my writing gift, and His Will for it. One of the speakers He used was a speaker whose workshop centered on blogging. In the session, the speaker was on the topic of how often one should blog; and, in the process of her answering that question, she started talking about something that I did not expect: excuses for not blogging. Can you guess what one of the excuses she referenced was? If you guessed “busy,” you would be correct. It stung to hear the truth that something that I was saying to myself as to why I was not blogging was an excuse. Although it was true that I was busy, I should not have let that stop me.

Let me say that the things that have made life busy are good. Good things like friendships that are sharpening me, encouraging me and inspiring me to pursue God at a greater level than before. In addition to that, God stirred in me this year to share the lessons that He has taught me in my life verbally by using my voice. In using my voice, He has pushed me to be more vulnerable than ever before this year. Taking the step of using my voice has not been easy, for verbal communication is by far not my strong suit, and being open and vulnerable is not easy for me either.

Why does God ask us to do things that are uncomfortable or are not strengths of ours? God through Paul gives us the answer. Paul states,

^5bI will not boast about myself, except about my weaknesses. ⁶Even if I should choose to boast, I would not be a fool, because I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain, so no one will think more of me than is warranted by what I do or say, ⁷or because of these surpassingly great revelations. Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. ⁸Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. ⁹But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. ¹⁰That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong (2 Corinthians 12:5b-10).

We all have a thorn or thorns that we wish God would take away. I may never be an eloquent speaker in my eyes. Even so, I have to remember that as long as I open my mouth and allow the Holy Spirit to speak through me the people that I share with will receive the things that God wants them to receive.

God’s power is not only present when we use our weaknesses for Him; His power is there when we allow Him to use our strengths too. When I walked away from that workshop on blogging, I knew that I could not continue to let busyness stop me. After accepting that truth, the realization that my return to blogging would not be easy set in.

And yet is anything that God leads us to do ever easy? Take the area of waiting as an example. God asks us to wait for Him for the prince that He deems worthy of our hearts. Wait for Him to give us direction on what the next step in our lives is. Wait for the door to open for a job. Most importantly, we wait for Him to send Jesus back to earth to come get us His bride. Whatever it is we are waiting on God for, as we wait, some days are easier, but other days feel like we are battling the frustration or doubts that creep into our minds.

The battle in our mind is not just when we are waiting. There is that battle in the space between a step that we know we should take and actually taking the step. For me, I needed to stop thinking so much about how best to make this work; and instead, just sit down at my computer, and allow the Holy Spirit to give me the words to write.

We all will have to answer the question of what matters most to us when faced with God asking us to do things that are not easy and are uncomfortable. Life as a follower of Jesus involves doing things that are not convenient. Jesus describes a life following Him this way:

²⁴Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. ²⁵For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. ²⁶What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? ²⁷For 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 they have done. ²⁸‘Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom’ (Matthew 16:24-28).

Let us choose daily to take up our cross, follow Jesus. Let us go to battle by letting go of excuses, speaking the truth in God’s Word to the fears, the doubts and the lies that we face in order to do the things that He asks of us. Whenever we do what He asks, Deuteronomy 31:8 says, “The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.” God will be right there with us. I am going to fight for what God wants me to do. Will you?

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All Bible verses are from Holy Bible: New International Version