The Cross Keeper

It springs out of nowhere, that gigantic white cross by the side of the road. It’s an enormous reminder of a bigger-than-life moment when the antidote for sin was made readily available.  It is a reminder of infinite love, inexhaustible mercy, undeserved pardon, and amazing grace.  Today, it reminds me to forgive.  My heart has been wounded.  My child’s tender emotions have been needlessly tangled.  My world feels unstable.  I am emotionally bruised and battered. Yet amid the frustration, terror, pain and angst that seem to take turns battering my heart, the picture of the cross reminds me to forgive. 

A little over a month ago I felt compelled to pray a personalized version of The Lord’s Prayer every day for 30 days.  Remember the part where it says, “…forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors”? (Matthew 6:12) Well, every day for a month I prayed that God would help me to have a loving, forgiving spirit toward others.  I didn’t know that God was preparing my heart to endure hardness as a good soldier.  I didn’t know that on February 14, God began preparing me for the deep waters of March 19.  I didn’t see it then, but now I see that God was preparing me to forgive.

You see, I can’t afford not to forgive.  I can’t let the fear turn into bitterness that hardens my soul.  I can’t allow the frustration to boil over into unkind words or actions that don’t emulate Jesus.  I can’t allow hate, anger, and pain to cloud my judgment and keep me from seeing my final destination. I can allow nothing to separate me from Jesus. My relationship with him is just too important to me. Failing to forgive is just too costly.

Most of us either have been or are currently in the throes of forgiving someone who wronged us.  For some of us, it feels like the road to recovery is insufferably long, the path to forgiveness too rough.  Jesus gets that.  He travelled a long, arduous road up to Golgotha, but he did it because his relationship with us was too important to him.  Failing to offer us forgiveness would have been too costly.  He died that we might know the joy of being forgiven and the peace that comes by forgiving others.  The cross is my reminder to forgive.

A short distance before the enormous cross by the side of the road is a driveway titled “Cross Keeper Lane”.  The title urges me to embody the messages of the cross—love and forgiveness.  For some time now the combination of the cross and the sign has challenged me to be a Cross Keeper.  It speaks to me of loving others unconditionally.  It tells me to offer unlimited forgiveness.  But it is not easy.  I struggle.  Not everyone is readily lovable.  I do not always readily forgive.  But I am learning and growing.  As I continue to pray for a loving, forgiving spirit, I realize that I am becoming a Cross Keeper.  

You know, you can’t afford not to forgive.  Eventually it sucks the life from you, hardens your heart, and makes you view the world with a jaundiced eye.  Jesus is calling you to be a Cross Keeper.  He is calling you to love the unlovable, and forgive the unforgivable.  Just as he made the arduous journey up Golgotha to provide you with the joy of forgiveness, he asks that you make the monumental effort to forgive others that you might know peace.  He loved you too much to fail to provide forgiveness for your sins, no matter what they were. Do you love him enough to love and forgive others no matter what?  Do you love Jesus enough to carry on the messages of the cross?  Are you a Cross Keeper?