Christ exhorts us to take up our cross and follow him (Luke 9:23)} I have learned from Scripture and from experience itself that the cross comes at the end for no other reason than that we must endure trials and tribulations and, finally, voluntary death itself… we learn for sure that cross and death consist in nothing else than the complete mortification of self-will. He who pursues his own will, however, slightly, will never be able to observe the precept of Christ the Savior.

(Saint Symeon the New Theologian)