The Heaviness of the Cross

“As [Jesus] stepped ashore, He saw a huge crowd and had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. ”

— Mark 6:34

As word spread about Jesus and all of the miracles He was performing, crowds began to seek Him out and follow Him. Everyone was anxious to receive something from Him - a good word, healing, food. The Gospel of Mark records that, at one point, Jesus “went home, and the crowd gathered again so that they were not even able to eat” (3:20). Fast forward a few chapters and we see Jesus miraculously feeding a crowd of 5,000 (6:30-44) and then later a crowd of 4,000 (8:1-10).

The wonders of Jesus were so well known that, “wherever He would go, into villages, towns, or the country, they laid the sick in marketplaces and begged him that they might touch the tassel of His robe. And everyone who touched it was made well” (6:56). This gives us such insight into the compassionate and giving nature of our Savior. But it’s worth noting who was with Jesus when things got tough, when He was arrested in the garden of Gethsemane and marched to His death: “They all deserted Him and ran away” (14:50).

There were no more crowds.

In seasons of abundance, when we're getting everything our hearts desire, it's easy to pick up our cross and follow Jesus because our cross feels as light as a feather. But what about the seasons of loss, when it seems like God has forgotten about us, when the spigot of abundance has been turned off and we're called to follow Jesus even though our cross feels like it weighs a thousand pounds? Will we desert Him and run away, or will we follow Him to our death?

Walking through this season of job loss with Matt has been hard. My cross feels impossibly heavy at times, and so does Matt's. Perhaps some couples cruise through job loss, so my saying how heavy our crosses are might sound melodramatic. But one thing I know is this: our Father is the Gardner, and He knows just how to prune us where we need it most. And those places are going to hurt the most. For Matt and I, his job loss cut to the core of some pretty prominent idols in each of our lives. And we're feeling it. 

Instinctively, I want to rebel against the pruning, to run away from its Source. But then I remember Jesus' conversation with Peter in John 6. When some of His followers started to desert Him, Jesus asked, "Are you also going to leave?" And Peter so honestly responded, "Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words that give eternal life" (John 6:68). In other words, "Where else can we go, Lord? You're our only hope!"

Submission to those pruning shears is the only answer. He is our only answer.

One thing I've prayed over the past several months is that God would sustain me. I don't want to be a fair-weather follower. I don't want to be like the crowds of people in Jesus' day who followed Him when He was giving them what they wanted, and then disappeared when sacrifice and death were called for. I want to pick up my cross daily and “rejoice as I share in the sufferings of the Messiah, so that I may also rejoice with great joy at the revelation of His glory” (1 Peter 4:13). I want to follow Jesus in the good times and the painful times, because I love Him. And I want to show Him I love Him.

I want to say with Paul, "For me, living is Christ and dying is gain" (Philippians 1:21),

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Jesus Slept on a Pillow

There's a small detail in the story of Jesus calming the storm in Mark 4 that is so interesting. Scripture says that when Jesus and His disciples were traveling on a boat, a fierce storm hit. The disciples were terrified, scurrying around in a panic, but Jesus was sleeping soundly in the back of the boat "with his head on a cushion" (v. 38).

The small detail of the cushion, which God Himself inspired Mark to include in his narrative, teaches me two things: First, Jesus was tired because He was human. Honestly, I sometimes forget His humanness. When I picture Him, it's easy for me to see a god-like man who only looks human gliding across the earth, not having to eat, sleep, bathe, or go to the bathroom. It almost seems disrespectful to think of Jesus having to do some of these very human things. Degrading, even. But the fact that Jesus was fully human, and "stripped himself of all privilege by consenting to be a slave by nature and being born as mortal man" (Philippians 2:7, JBP) is what makes the incarnation so amazing. What a testament to God's love for us, that He would stoop so low to save us!

It's also interesting to note that, as any human would, Jesus enjoyed the comforts available to Him. His enjoying comfort also means that He felt the "dis-comfort" of the cross - He fully experienced the pain and fear and shame and humiliation when He was stripped, beaten, and nailed to those wooden beams like a common criminal. The fact that He was the Son of God didn't make His death, or all the events leading up to it, any easier. He didn't exempt Himself the negative emotions that came with it. He felt them all, as any human would.

And because Jesus suffered as a human, we can be encouraged in our own suffering: "Now that we know what we have—Jesus, this great High Priest with ready access to God—let’s not let it slip through our fingers. We don’t have a priest who is out of touch with our reality. He’s been through weakness and testing, experienced it all—all but the sin. So let’s walk right up to him and get what he is so ready to give. Take the mercy, accept the help" (Hebrews 4:14-16, JBP).

The second thing Jesus sleeping on a pillow teaches me is that He wasn't one bit afraid of the storm. He trusted His Father so fully that He was able to rest in the midst of the howling winds and crashing waves. Rest flows from a heart that trusts in a good Father. Ultimately, if we don't trust that God is good, and that He'll bring good out of our trial, then we'll never be able to rest in Him. Instead, we'll worry and fret and try to control situations that we have zero control over, which will only increase our anxiety.

One verse I've gone back to dozens of times since Matt's job loss in November is Psalm 119:68: "You are good, and You do what is good" (HCSB). This certainly doesn't mean that everything that happens to us in this life is good, but it does mean that our good Father has promised to fit everything into a pattern for good. And, ultimately, since any suffering that reaches us has first passed through His sovereign hands, we can trust that if He has seen fit to allow it, then He has a good purpose in it.

God is good, and He does what is good. I have to pray this verse often, especially when the Devil tries to tell me that God isn't good, and that He's withholding something good from me and Matt. My human nature is so tempted to believe the enemy's lies, especially when my circumstances seem to confirm them. But then I go back to the Word, and I see that God is good, that He does what is good, and that "He does not withhold the good from those who live with integrity" (Psalm 84:11). End of story. The truth silences the enemy.

If we trust in God's good heart toward us, we'll find rest, knowing that the One who holds the whole world in His hands also holds us. And that He loves us with an everlasting love.

"Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him" (Psalm 37:7, KJV).

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Trying to Make Sense of Suffering

It's tempting during times of intense trial to believe that we're suffering because we made a mistake or did something to anger God. I'm not talking about blatant disobedience. Disobedience always leads to suffering, but suffering isn't always a result of disobedience (Peter makes the distinction between suffering justly and unjustly in 1 Peter 3). I'm talking about that sinking feeling you get when tragedy strikes and you think, God must be out to get me.

While we may feel like God is angry at us in seasons of suffering, it's not true. In Philippians 1:29, Paul says, "For you have been given not only the privilege of trusting in Christ but also the privilege of suffering for him." According to Paul, suffering for Christ isn't a form of punishment doled out by an angry God; rather, suffering is a gift and a privilege.

David was a man who knew great suffering. If anyone were tempted to feel like a pawn in a cruel cosmic game, it was him. In 1 Samuel 23, David was on the run from Saul, the maniacal king who sought to kill him, and he was hiding in Philistine territory. Saul found out his location, so David immediately went to God in prayer and asked Him two questions:

1) Will Saul really try to capture me?
2) If he does, will the citizens of the town hand me over to him?

God answered yes to both questions, so David and his army of delinquent men had to flee once again.

By this point, Samuel had already anointed David as king - how then did David end up as a desert fugitive? It’s easy to assume that David's hardship was the result of God's abandoning him or punishing him - Did David do something wrong? Did God forget about Him? Did God change His mind about making David king? But verse 14 lets the reader know that God Himself was the reason David was in the desert in the first place, and He had a good purpose in it. "David stayed in the wilderness strongholds and in the hills of the Desert of Ziph. Day after day Saul searched for him, but God did not give David into his hands" (NIV, author's emphasis). God didn't protect David from suffering, but He guided him through it. And nothing happened to David that wasn't part of God's good plan.

We don't know all of the reasons why God had David in the desert for over a decade before he finally became king. But we do know what the Bible says about why we suffer. The primary reason is our holiness - to transform us into the image of Jesus. A secondary reason is to prepare us for what God has next. David's days in the desert made Him one of the most humble, God-fearing kings Israel ever knew. He wasn't perfect, but he was a man who knew the Lord intimately and trusted Him. David's time in the desert prepared him for kingship.

If we look back over our lives, we can likely see how God used our suffering as part of our story of redemption, too. As the saying goes, God turns our misery into our ministry. Our job is not to understand the why of our misery; our job is to trust the Who behind it. God's understanding is so much greater than our own, and as we learn to lean on His goodness and sovereignty in our suffering, we'll rest in the fact that He will bring beauty out of the ashes of our lives, just as He promises. God doesn't make mistakes. And if He captures every tear we shed and places them in His bottle (Psalm 56:8), we can be certain that none of our pain is wasted. Every bit of it has purpose, even if we can't always see it.

"The Lord is near the brokenhearted; He saves those crushed in spirit" (Psalm 34:18).

I love what Tim Keller says: "If we knew what God knows, we would ask exactly for what he gives," including the suffering He metes out. This statement is absolutely true, but it's hard to see it's truth when something happens that seems like a mistake or a cruel act of God. For me and Matt, that was Matt's job loss back in November and the heartbreaking ripple effects that have ensued. Nothing about it made sense or seemed to have any good purpose. It just seemed cruel. The Devil tried to convince us that this time was different - God wasn't going to come through for us like He had in the past. It was a battle to fight the enemy's lies, and it still is to some extent since we're not completely out of the weeds yet.

In a particularly dark time for us a couple months ago, a pastor's wife said to me, "It might be hard to believe that God has ordained this season of suffering in His kindness, but He has."

God's kindness has brought about this suffering.

That truth has brought me through some really hard days. Suffering seems so cruel, so unkind, but we only see a tiny piece of the whole picture. As Elisabeth Elliot says,

“Our vision is so limited we can hardly imagine a love that does not show itself in protection from suffering. The love of God is of a different nature altogether. It does not hate tragedy. It never denies reality. It stands in the very teeth of suffering. The love of God did not protect His own Son. The cross was the proof of His love – that He gave that Son, that He let Him go to Calvary’s cross, though ‘legions of angels’ might have rescued Him. He will not necessarily protect us - not from anything it takes to make us like His Son. A lot of hammering and chiseling and purifying by fire will have to go into the process.”

How about if we viewed the suffering we're experiencing as a gift, straight from the hands of a loving and kind Father? How might that change the way we walk through this season?

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