Taking Up The Cross
Gerald Bieseker-Mast writes in a recent paper:
"To say this yet another way: accepting God's will means accepting the way that God works in the world--not by might or by power but by the spirit. If God does not impose God's will on God's world against the will of God's disobedient creatures, then for the disciples of Jesus to willlingly accept in any given moment the painful effects of disobedient practices or structures on the disciple without trying to crush them and without accepting their ultimate sovereignty is to accept the will of God, without God's will being seen as the sovereign cause of the suffering caused by disobedience. It is only in this sense that it is right to understand Jesus' crucifixion as the will of God--as a way of responding to enemies even unto death that comports most fully with the way in which God intervenes in history, with the way God briings God's purposes amidst disobedient creatures, and with the will of God for those of us who seek to pursue God's purposes in our daily lives."