How the Cross Changes Your Life

If God is good, why is the world so broken?

Why do bad things happen to good people?

Why do I carry scars from things that weren’t my choice and not my fault — as well as scars from my own mistakes?

The cross is God’s answer. It doesn’t sit off to the side as a religious symbol — it stands in the mess, naming evil, defeating it, and showing us another way to live.

One false answer is karma — the idea that good things happen to good people and bad things to bad people. Jesus flatly rejects it. In Luke 13 he reminds us of people murdered by Pilate and a tower collapse that killed many. Were they worse sinners than others? No. Bad things happen to good people. That’s why Philip Yancey calls grace a scandal — because God gives love to those who don’t deserve it.

Another false answer is control. We think if we can organise life tightly enough, nothing painful will touch us. But coercive power always means someone else pays the cost. A hot-mic moment once caught world leaders discussing organ harvesting to stay young — a chilling picture of power without conscience. Or think of cruise ships and Disneyland: for every few thousand who enjoy comfort, there are a thousand more serving in the background. U2 sings, “You become a monster so the monster will not break you.” But Jesus said, “Not so with you. Whoever wants to be great must be the servant of all.” Power won’t save you; Christ-shaped surrender will.

The Way of the Cross

Over and over Jesus said the same thing: If you want to find life, get ready to die. “Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me.” That runs against everything in our culture, which shouts, Pursue happiness, make yourself comfortable, and add religion if there’s time. But Jesus warns: if you chase life that way, you’ll lose it; if you give your life to him, you’ll find it.

Romans 8 says all creation groans as in the pains of childbirth, and 2 Corinthians 5 says we groan too, longing for something more while living in broken bodies. Creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are. We glimpse an incredible future, yet we live in what feels like a cesspit — the pain and darkness of the real world.

Our culture says if something’s wrong, then something’s wrong. But the Bible says: yes, there is something wrong, and Jesus came to make it right.

Some churches promise if you just “do faith right,” you’ll avoid pain and get what you want. This so-called prosperity gospel is evil because it denies the truth. It’s not the truth. It’s just not the truth. The real gospel says God meets us in the valley and never leaves.

There are moments when all you can pray is what Jesus prayed in Gethsemane: “Please, I don’t want to do this. I can’t do this.” If you’ve had moments like that, when everything in you was crying out for relief, you are not alone. Jesus’ answer was, “Not my will, but yours be done.”

Pain, Trauma, and Hope

The Bible insists suffering is not wasted. Romans 5 says: “We glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.” That’s not a slogan you throw at someone else’s pain. It’s a promise you cling to in your own.

Peter also warns us not to be surprised by trials but to rejoice that we participate in the sufferings of Christ so that we may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. Glory is not comfort — it is God’s justice and mercy, his grace and truth, revealed on a cross. God’s glory gets revealed on a cross, not on your cruise ship.

We must also speak carefully. You don’t tell someone in the middle of suffering, “Don’t worry, God will use it.” That’s not a light thing to say. The promise is true, but it is something you cling to in your own pain, not something you use to minimise someone else’s.

Psychiatrists note that trauma happens when you are flooded by pain you cannot process. Grief, by contrast, is good — it means you are facing pain and working through it. God doesn’t ask us to avoid pain with numbing strategies — whether chocolate, grog, pornography, money, or power. He calls us to face it with him, eyes open, knowing he has us and it will be okay.

I think of Jeanette, facing death square in the face. That moment is scary, but it can also be beautiful — the suffering about to end, and the life to come so much better. If hope rests only on circumstances, it crumbles. Hope has to rest somewhere deeper. As C.S. Lewis said, “God whispers in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it starkly: “The fact that Jesus Christ died is more important than the fact that I will die. The fact that he was raised is the sole ground of my hope that I too will be raised. Salvation comes from outside ourselves. I find salvation not in my life story, but only in the story of Jesus Christ.”

Part of God’s answer is this: your pain is temporary, and your future is incredible. We live from the point of view of eternity, knowing death doesn’t win.

The Cross and the New Humanity

Hebrews says Jesus took on flesh to break the power of him who holds the power of death — that is, the devil, who started this whole cycle back in Genesis. Death no longer rules the story.

First-century Jews expected a Messiah who would use coercive power to “make Israel great again.” But Isaiah had already promised a suffering servant: “He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” Jesus fulfilled that promise not with force but with self-giving love.

Paul explains in Ephesians 2 that the cross creates “one new humanity.” Christ himself is our peace, breaking down dividing walls, reconciling us to God, and opening the way to the Father by the Spirit. That means your past no longer defines you, and you belong to a new family.

Psalm 23 becomes real because of the cross. The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. The world tells you what you lack to keep you buying, but Jesus says you already have what matters most. Even in the darkest valley, you can say, “I will fear no evil, for you are with me.” I think of my friend Pete, who clung to Psalm 23 as he faced death. He knew his Shepherd was with him. That same Shepherd walks with you.

As Dr. Gabor Maté says, “Safety is not the absence of threat, but the presence of connection.” That connection is found in community, yes, but above all in Jesus — who will never leave you.

Colossians 1:27 sums it up: “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” And glory means God’s nature — his justice, mercy, compassion, grace, and truth — now alive in you.

Part of why we have an empty cross is that Jesus isn’t hanging there anymore. He is alive and present, walking with us even in the darkest valleys.

How Evil Is Defeated

Revelation 12 says believers overcome the evil one by the blood of the Lamb, by the word of their testimony, and by not loving their lives even unto death. The blood of Jesus is God’s victory over evil. Your testimony — your real story of what God has done — flows out of tests you’ve survived. Rick Warren put it well: “You don’t get a testimony without a test.” And true courage means not clinging to comfort but organising your life around Jesus, whatever it costs.

Hebrews 10 echoes this: “My righteous one will live by faith. And I take no pleasure in the one who shrinks back. We do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved.” Fear is not the shape of Christian life; faith is.

Jesus himself said, “There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed… what I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight… proclaim from the roofs. Don’t be afraid of the politicians who make threats. Don’t be afraid of people who disagree with you. Don’t be afraid of those who look horrible and say you’re wrong. Don’t be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.”

And then he adds: “Two little birds get sold for a penny, yet not one of them falls without your Father’s care. The very hairs of your head are numbered. You are worth more than many sparrows.”

For Jeanette, facing death, what she needed to know was simple: God’s got her. And what you need to know is just as simple: as you walk through your valley of the shadow of death, God’s got you.

Living from the Cross

So what does the cross mean for your life today? It means death does not win. It means you are not alone. It means you can live from the point of view of eternity and also from the presence of Jesus now.

But to live that way, you need to lay down the strategies you use to avoid reality — the false comforts, the illusions of control, the escapes you run to. At the foot of the cross you leave behind all the ways you try to get through the valley on your own.

The cross is also the place of new covenant. Jesus said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood.” That means God now relates to you differently: forgiven, welcomed, invited into his life. His body makes you part of a new humanity; “this is my body in which the two become one and a new humanity is born.” His blood anchors your future and your present.

And every time we share bread and cup we remember, “Whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” Communion is not escape; it is fuel for walking back into reality with Jesus.

The cross is not just the symbol of our faith. It is the place where God’s justice and grace meet, where pain is transformed into hope, and where you discover you are never alone.