“Jesus told His disciples, ‘If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.'” Matthew 16:24-25

I’d left the bedroom window open a crack to listen for the approaching hurricane… and slept in! The ‘life threatening storm’ had barely grown or moved through the night, so no sounds alerted me to any danger. Now, Hurricane Helene looks like she’s going to go around and miss us altogether. The sun is even shining now!

In retrospect, there was a LOT of commotion and preparation warning for Helene. Before she even curved around the Key’s, school districts called for a 3 day closure and even some Businesses had shut down. Heck… even ‘I’ brought in a few plants in from outside. A lot of work was exercised… and abated… for no real danger.

Obviously, had we known then what we know now, we would have done, or NOT done, a few things differently. Humans have the tendency to avoid big storms or trouble out of self preservation. But this Jesus guy, who claims to be God, came around 2000 years ago and upset the apple cart warning… DON’T MISS THIS ONE!

Backache, moans, groans and fatigue naturally cause me to want to avoid pain, stress and struggle. Jesus made the offer for an Eternal Life that cannot be found anywhere else. To GET it, I must voluntarily LAY DOWN MY life… and TAKE UP A CROSS and FOLLOW HIM? That doesn’t sound like a very fun plan! But He insists.

I took Jesus up on His offer decades ago, and I can tell you this life has not been easy. Called to care for and teach fellow ‘cross bearers’ the art of dying to self, comes with its own difficulties. Especially when I see saints working harder to throw off their crosses than to embrace them. Denying ‘self’ is not popular.

There is a cross for each of us. It comes with both a promise AND a warning. We will get the GREATEST LIFE… But only THERE! Until then, we are called to deny ‘self’, pick our cross and move along WITH the Savior. So… what are YOU dragging around?