Jesus tells his disciples that they must daily pick up their cross and follow him. Just as Jesus did not get to choose his cross, neither do we. Jesus' cross was not just the wooden beams he carried to Golgotha. Jesus embraced his cross each and every day of his whole life. His cross was his willingness to be faithful to God's will: to embrace his successes and failures and mixed results each day as he tried to love others as God loves him. We don't need to go looking for our cross — that's a veiled way of trying to choose our own rather than accepting the one God has for us — because like a faithful pet it will be there waiting to greet us each and every day.

What profit is there if one gains the whole world but loses one's life? We only truly find our lives when we lose them to Christ, when we live in the present moment with God, seeking to know God's will for us and to keep it. What profit is there in it? It's a thing called heaven — not just after our death, but here and now as well. That is the message Jesus preached as the good news.