Daily Journey Through the Great Fast With the Early ChurchSample

Have you ever met someone who was a natural at making excuses for things? - why work wasn’t getting done, why their homework wasn’t completed, why it wasn’t their fault for (fill in the blank)? Again, I was sitting across from my father of confession making excuses for all the reasons why I hadn’t fully committed to my spiritual canons - spiritual exercises that Ishouldpractice (prayers, prostrations, fasting until a certain time, etc). I had tried to soften the blow by highlighting the very few tasks I had down pat. I explained how great I was at getting to church before the Gospel, reading the Bible every day,almostfasting the whole morning - I was trying to divert his attention to the “good things” I was doing. Wow, what a spiritual athlete I was! Really though, who was I kidding? God saw it all. What was I really holding on to, what was my excuse? Why couldn’t I just get it together? My excuses were trying to cover for the fact that I needed to stop being lazy and even then, my father of confession, with compassion, suggested we remove one or two tasks if it was getting to be too much, then quietly and confidently, like a calm General, my father of confession tasked me, “Continue in the struggle.”

It wasn’t about the things I may or may not be doing - it was my commitment to leave my pride, fear, and doubt behind. My problem, as yours may be, was my excuses caused this inability to be obedient to the commitment I made to God, which in turn made it hard to hear God speaking to me clearly.

That’s a hard one to admit - that the cost is great to follow Jesus, you know, to stop making excuses, to fully commit yourself to Him, to leave all our comforts and loved ones behind and put Him first so we can be “fit for service” [Luke 9:62].

So here I am, committing my ways and my heart to Him. Join me in committing to Him alone, leaving the world behind. Every day continuing in the struggle and accepting that He is the Love worth leaping towards.No matter the cost.Let us, when He calls out to us, respond saying, “Speak, Lord, for Your servant hears.” [1 Samuel 3:10]. Take up your cross and follow Christ, but we can only do so if we have His Cross, which He carried in order to save us. Which Cross saves us? His or ours? It is His Cross that validates us, gives us the authority, the power and means to save us and others.

May the power of His Cross be your focus each day. His Cross gives power, His Cross gives life, His Cross gives freedom - when you realize the power of His Cross, you won’t ever want to keep it as a secret for yourself, you’ll want to shout it from the top of the mountain for the whole world to hear!

“Say not then, I will follow you wherever you go. But if you would be a disciple, cast off foolish things, for it is impossible for him who remains in foolishness to become a disciple of the Word.” [St. Athanasius the Apostolic, 5th century Patriarch of Alexandria and a “doctor of the Church”]