A response to our daily call

Fill in the blank. Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and _______________________ daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23).

Here are your choices: (a) take up your cross or (b) follow the path of least resistance. Every day you must each choose one or the other, for there is no third choice, and the two are mutually exclusive.

To be honest, the two alternative paths each have something to commend them. If there were nothing to commend the path of least resistance, there would not be so many who choose it. After all, people tend to choose what they believe to be in their best interest. So let us fairly and without prejudice evaluate the benefits of both choices.

First let us consider choice “b.” In favor of the path of least resistance is that it is … the path of least resistance. All nature prefers it. Even a drop of rain making its way down the windowpane is following the natural principle of the path of least resistance. Roadblocks and hindrances are easier to go around than to exert force against. So in following the path of least resistance, one enjoys a more pleasant ride. One has not knocked oneself out, or broken a sweat, or felt the sentence of death in one’s breast—like the Apostle Paul used to feel on a daily basis:

“… For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed we felt that we had received the sentence of death …” (2 Corinthians 1:9).

Lest you think Paul’s cross-carrying was only situational and out of his hands, we are apprised that the struggle was primarily internal in nature and required action on his part:

“… When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we entreat. We have become, and are still, like the scum of the world …” (1 Corinthians 4:12-13).

The path of least resistance in such cases is to slander back and revile in return. That’s easy. That’s momentarily pleasant.

Now let us consider choice “a.” The benefits of taking up your cross daily do not immediately appear. All through the day one runs up against obstacles, and rather then finding the most pleasant way around them, one exerts some effort to find the godliest way. If the obstacle is one’s own desires (which James 4:1-2 fingers as the root cause of relational friction), the take up your cross daily principle of living asks itself what is the most Christlike and God-honoring course. Then it does it, even though it involves a death, the killing of desire and preference. In fact, the only positive thing you can say about the lifestyle of take up your cross daily is that over time it creates in the doer the character of Christ that He wants us to take to heaven with us. Only that, but that’s enough.

It is interesting to me that Jesus said to take up our cross daily. The adverb “daily” wrests the command from the category of dilettantish abstraction to the eminently mundane, practical, and doable. Also, it alerts us to expect, as we get out of bed, some daily challenge to be prepared for. Forewarned is forearmed.

Once we see life through that lens, and expect the challenge, we can even welcome it, because we know it to be God’s means of sanctifying us.

At the end of my analysis, I come to the conclusion that the blanks in the verse above should be filled with “a,” not “b.” “Take up your cross daily” is the policy I will pursue, so help me God. Though its momentary cost is high, its eternal reward makes it the preferable choice. Would you agree?