The People we Love, but the Cross we carry...

 

A REFLECTION

The People We Love,

the Cross We Carry

 

On faith, family, and the cost of following Christ

There is a particular kind of pain that comes when following Christ changes the way your own family sees you.

It hurts to see parents, siblings, relatives, and friends become distant because you have chosen to follow Jesus. It hurts to remember the days when you belonged together without having to explain what you believed. It hurts when the traditions, celebrations, and customs that once brought everyone together can no longer be embraced in the same way.

And sometimes, the hardest part is not losing a tradition.

It is feeling as though you are losing your people.

Jesus never hid this cost from His disciples.

“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.”

— Matthew 10:34

Jesus was not commanding His followers to become hostile toward their families. He was warning them that allegiance to Him could create division, even within a household. He went on to say that whoever loves father or mother more than Him is not worthy of Him, and that whoever does not take up his cross and follow Him is not worthy of Him (Matthew 10:37–39).

Following Christ can cost us something.

Sometimes, it costs us comfort.

Sometimes, reputation.

Sometimes, friendships.

And sometimes, it costs us the closeness we once had with the people we love most.

BUT DOES FOLLOWING CHRIST MEAN WE STOP LOVING OUR PEOPLE?

No.

This distinction matters.

When Christ calls us away from something, He calls us away from whatever contradicts Him—not away from love itself. We may have to abandon practices that cannot be reconciled with our allegiance to Christ, but we are never commanded to abandon our love for the people around us.

Scripture still tells us to honor our parents (Ephesians 6:2), to care for our families (1 Timothy 5:8), to live peaceably with everyone as far as it depends on us (Romans 12:18), and even to love those who oppose us and pray for them (Matthew 5:44).

So perhaps becoming a Christian does not mean saying,

“These are no longer my people.”

Perhaps it means saying,

“These are still the people I love—but Christ is now the One I love above everyone.”

And that can be painfully difficult.

THEN WHY DOES IT HURT SO MUCH?

Maybe because becoming God's people does not make us less human.

The apostle Paul gives us one of the most painful pictures of this tension.

Paul belonged completely to Christ. He preached Christ. He suffered for Christ. His identity was firmly rooted in Christ.

And yet, when he thought about his own people—the Israelites—he wrote:

“I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.”

— Romans 9:2

His faith had not erased his grief.

His conversion had not erased his love.

His belonging to Christ had not made him indifferent toward those who had not believed.

In fact, his love was so deep that he could even say that he wished he could bear the curse himself for the sake of his people (Romans 9:3).

We cannot say exactly what Paul meant to accomplish with that statement, but his anguish is unmistakable.

You can belong completely to Christ and still grieve deeply over the people you love.

Those two things are not contradictions.

Sometimes, the pain itself is evidence that our love has not died.

A DILEMMA FROM ANOTHER TRADITION

There is an interesting parallel—not in theology, but in human experience.

The Bhagavad Gita tells the story of Arjuna standing before a battle in which the people on the opposing side include his own relatives, teachers, elders, and loved ones.

When Arjuna sees them, he is overwhelmed.

He does not stand there emotionless.

He grieves.

He trembles.

He becomes confused.

He asks what good can possibly come from killing those whom he loves (Bhagavad Gita 1:28–47). His anguish becomes so great that he tells Krishna that he does not want to fight (Bhagavad Gita 2:4–8).

Krishna then responds by teaching Arjuna about his duty, his responsibility, and the nature of life and death, eventually urging him to fulfill his role as a warrior (Bhagavad Gita 2:31–37).

I am not suggesting that the philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita and the Gospel are the same. They are not.

Their understanding of God, humanity, duty, salvation, and ultimate reality is profoundly different.

But there is something worth noticing.

Even this story recognizes the agony of being called to something while the people you love stand on the other side of it.

Arjuna's dilemma reminds us of something painfully human:

Sometimes obedience and affection seem to pull the heart in opposite directions.

BUT THE GOSPEL GIVES US SOMETHING GREATER

Here is where the Gospel is radically different.

Jesus does not merely tell us to fulfill our duty.

Jesus gives Himself.

He does not stand at a distance and simply demand sacrifice from us. He enters suffering Himself.

Paul writes that Christ,

“made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant”

— Philippians 2:7

and that He humbled Himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross (Philippians 2:8).

The Gospel is ultimately not the story of human beings finding their way back to God.

It is the story of God coming to us.

We were far away, and Christ brought us near (Ephesians 2:13).

We were enemies, and through the death of God's Son we were reconciled to God (Romans 5:10–11).

God was reconciling the world to Himself through Christ (2 Corinthians 5:19).

That is why the Christian's ultimate hope is not found merely in belonging to a new community.

It is found in being reconciled to God.

WE HAVE BECOME GOD'S PEOPLE

“Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God.”

— 1 Peter 2:10

There is something beautiful about that.

In Christ, we receive a new identity and a new family. The church becomes a household of faith. Brothers and sisters in Christ become our spiritual family (Mark 3:33–35; Galatians 6:10).

But this should never become an excuse to despise the family we came from.

The church is not a replacement for love.

It is a place where our love is transformed.

We no longer love people merely because they belong to our family, our community, or our culture.

We learn to love them because they are people made in the image of God.

And so, when our family rejects our faith, our response cannot be hatred.

It must be love.

BUT THEIR RESPONSE IS NOT OURS TO CONTROL

This is perhaps the hardest part.

We can pray.

We can speak.

We can explain.

We can live faithfully.

We can answer questions.

We can show patience.

We can continue loving.

But we cannot make another person believe.

Paul says that his heart's desire and prayer for Israel was that they might be saved (Romans 10:1).

Paul prayed.

He preached.

He reasoned.

He pleaded.

But salvation ultimately belongs to God.

Our responsibility is faithfulness.

Their response is not something we can manufacture.

That does not mean we stop caring.

It means we stop pretending that we are the Savior.

We cannot carry a burden that belongs to God.

We can love our families without believing that their salvation depends upon our ability to control them.

We can pray for them without living in despair.

We can speak the truth without becoming bitter when they reject it.

We can remain faithful without becoming hostile.

And perhaps most importantly, we can entrust them to God.

THE CROSS IS STILL A CROSS

Jesus never promised that following Him would always make life easier. He said,

“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.”

— Luke 9:23

A cross is not comfortable.

A cross costs something.

There may be moments when following Jesus feels like swallowing a painful pill that you never wanted to take.

There may be moments when you look at your family and wonder why obedience has to hurt this much.

There may be moments when memories of the past come back, and you miss the closeness you once had.

Let those tears come.

You do not have to pretend that it does not hurt.

Jesus Himself wept (John 11:35).

And Scripture does not tell us that every faithful Christian will receive everything they lost back in this lifetime.

Instead, it teaches us something deeper:

Christ is worth more than everything we may lose for Him.

Jesus said that whoever loses his life for His sake will find it (Matthew 10:39).

Paul counted everything as loss compared with the surpassing worth of knowing Christ (Philippians 3:7–8).

The cost is real.

But so is the gain.

SO WHAT DO WE DO WITH THE PAIN?

We carry it to God.

We do not carry it as though we are responsible for the entire story.

We pray for those we love.

We love them.

We forgive them when they hurt us.

We remain available to them.

We speak about Christ with gentleness and respect (1 Peter 3:15–16).

We do not compromise Christ to preserve acceptance.

But neither do we become cruel in the name of truth.

We walk the narrow road between faithfulness and love.

And when we reach the limits of what we can do, we leave the rest in God's hands.

Because this is ultimately not our story.

It is His.

He called us.

He redeemed us.

He carries us.

He works in hearts.

He knows what we cannot see.

And He is Lord over the outcome.

ONE DAY, THE TEARS WILL END

Perhaps there are prayers you have been carrying for years.

Perhaps there are names you cannot mention without your heart becoming heavy.

Perhaps there are family members you desperately wish would know the Christ you have come to know.

Perhaps you have wondered whether the distance will ever disappear.

I do not know how every one of those stories will end.

And Scripture does not give us permission to invent promises that God has not made.

But Scripture does give us this promise:

“He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain.”

— Revelation 21:4

Whatever grief belongs to this present age will not have the final word.

Whatever suffering we endure for Christ will not be wasted.

Paul reminds us that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed (Romans 8:18).

So we keep walking.

We keep loving.

We keep praying.

We keep following Christ.

And when our hearts are exhausted, we remember the One who carried the cross before us.

Jesus did not abandon us when we were far from God.

He came for us.

He humbled Himself.

He suffered.

He died.

And through Him, we were brought near to God.

Perhaps that is why, even when following Christ costs us deeply, we can still say:

He is worth it.

We do not know how every story will end.

But we know whose hands hold the story.

And that is enough to keep walking.

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