Today I was asked to do a small favour and I wasn’t too happy about it. Then I started thinking to do it with joy in my heart, knowing that it is what God wants of me. I found it hard and then I was reminded of Jesus teaching us in the Gospel pages, to pick up our cross and follow Him. The cross is anything that your flesh would not want you to do. It is a way to die to self for the love of God and be reborn of Him more each time you deprive yourself for Him. Then I was thinking about martyrs for God. Some people will obey God and be a martyr for Him, which is good. There are others who love God even more and see it as a privilege and a great honour to share in the sufferings of Jesus while there is still time to do it. While I was thinking about that a thought came to me those martyrs only suffer a shadow of what Jesus suffered for them. Nobody is so strong in the love and faith of God that we are willing to suffer what Jesus suffered for us totally.

I am now praying in earnest for the grace of a great love of God that I am willing to pick up my cross doesn’t matter what it is and follow Jesus. In some things I am already doing that, but there is plenty of other areas that I am not, such as housework. And to think of putting a smile on Jesus face when we please Him is a marvellous reward in itself.