Pick up your bubble and follow Me

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must protect themselves and take up their bubble and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will certainly be commended for it, but whoever loses their life will face the scorn of other believers...."
Bubbles are safe. Self imposed isolation is comfortable. Refusing to associate with the broken, the "different", the bitter and the sinful keeps us from falling. If we're floating along in our safe bubbles, it's pretty certain that nothing will tempt us except perhaps superiority. Other bubble dwellers will smile and give their approving nod to assure us that we are most holy.
If you're familiar with the passage above, you'll know I completely reversed its message. In actuality, it reads, "Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life[f] will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it...."
I won't impress you with my vast historical knowledge about crosses. I don't need to because Jesus said it all; "Take up your cross." From what I know of crosses, they're heavy, they hurt and they cause death; and in the Christian realm, they're very necessary if we're to know life.
I hate death. It's robbed me of many people I love deeply and upon whom I leaned quite heavily at times. These people were happy to let me lean. When they died, I lost my props. In the process, I discovered that my strongest Support, my Source of Life was more than enough.
I tend to think that's the call of Christ. Lose those things upon which you rely; in fact, consider yourself dead to anything that keeps you from relying on Christ. Expose yourself to the brokenness of the world for which Christ died; be fully in the world. Watch yourself, lest you become part of it, but certainly be in it.
That's treading on a mine field. Criticism, hatred, suffering and even death will blow up in our faces because we choose to follow Christ through the pain of this world. We'll likely face the gasps of horror and looks of disdain from other believers who feel that we're called to isolation. Follow Him through pain anyway. We'll weep agonizing tears over the sinfulness of people and the ruin that their sin causes. Embrace the broken anyway. We'll be rejected, hated and might even face physical pain and death because we tell people they need a Saviour. Witness anyway.
The totally amazing thing is that when we do take up our cross, we find the abundant life Jesus promised.