Take up your cross

When Jesus said that we are to take up our cross and follow Him I don't think He was talking about those things in our lives that we sometimes call crosses. He could have said that when hardships come we are to "grin and bear it" but that is not what He said. A person who was carrying a cross in Jesus day was on his way to his death. Too often we try to get rid of our difficulties and then we add that they are the crosses that we must bear. Those difficulties are only difficulties, inconveniences but not an instrument of death.