The cross always comes down to a personal crisis. There is no impersonal cross – it is extremely personal.
God knows us in our core. God “gives” us our cross. The cross he gives, therefore, cannot be but personal on the most intimate level.
Fashioned to the greatness God knows we are capable of achieving and to which he has already called us, we must embrace it and carry it if we are to reach that personal destiny God wants for us. That means, in one sense, that conquering our most dreaded fear or situation is the key to breaking through. “To be mature means to face, and not evade, every fresh crisis that comes.” (Fritz Kunkel)
The more we avoid our cross – which means avoiding the perfect call and destiny God is offering – the more we will sink into depression and apathy. We then end with a deeper hole to dig out of and tougher battles to fight.
We as a society avoid the cross like the plague. And to cope with all the maladies that set in, we have devised a whole system that keeps us medicated and distracted. This system includes the rush of work, the busyness of activities, the mind numbing and brain washing of TV and media in general, and the indulgence of our sensual appetites. It all creates a false reality. But it is our reality, the one we subscribe to – and, so what is really illusion, becomes our truth.
We must peel back this false cover if we are ever to discover real truth. We must deal this deceitful “serpent” – who seduces and leads us astray – the death blow. There can be no compromise.
But we love our comforts. And to challenge a whole way of life seems unrealistic. Embracing the cross, however, always opens the door to new life. How?
The cross detaches us from our earthly, purely human point of view, freeing us to see the bigger picture of life and God’s designs. It breaks the chains that constrain us to a small, selfish view of the world and others. It breaks our hearts, only to expand them for a greater capacity to love God and man.
Only a strong desire for and love of the truth will give us the will and action to get there. Truth, not as an intellectual concept, but truth as the living reality – the divine being of Christ.