Does this look like a helpless ass, to you? To be honest, it looks like me.
Today, I had an insightful time of devotional reading and prayer. I was convicted to lay my burdens down. I hadn’t properly realized how heavy my load of worries has been.
After I gave them to God to carry, I noticed how exhausting it has been to leverage them. My epiphany: I can be inadvertently as stubborn and pathetic as an overburdened ass, to the point where my load masters me.
Maybe you need to find some relief too.
There are about 20 days until Easter (Resurrection Sunday). The time is ripe to take a potent inventory of your worries, sins, and burdens. You are tired. You are more tired than you know. Don’t be stubborn, like me. Relent and give up your load.
Be encouraged–right now as you read this–to really take a two or three minutes to be aware of the weight and hardship of your current load.
For a minute, picture all of that as a huge backpack or bundle (see photo below for visual inspiration). Ask yourself: What are my burdens? Ask: Why am I carrying them so long?
Do you want relief?
Accept God’s relief.
Now, put down your load. Put it all the way down. Try to stay with that visual image, and pray about it. What would you like to tell God?
What have you sensed in this short time of thinking about it?
And, what, if anything, is God prompting you to do?
Will you follow your savior up the mountain, and give up your load?
God’s strength and forgiveness is critical for us to recognize and accept. It is our saving grace. What a cathartic gift it is to lay our burdens down. Remember the joy of your salvation today.
Today’s verse for prayer reflection:
Matthew 11:28 Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. -Jesus, the Christ
Feel free to share your thoughts, insights, reflections, random comments, or silly observations. We’re in this together. May your day be blessed.
One day, Jesus of Nazareth stood up in a busy corner of the marketplaces of Capernaum. People were rushing to and fro, busy with the cares and concerns of everyday life.
This Jesus began to speak openly, and He said a remarkable thing. “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)
Psalm 55:22 tells us, “Cast thy burden upon the LORD, and he shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.” Galatians 6:2 says, “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.” And, then, there is this interesting Scripture: “For every man shall bear his own burden.” (Galatians 6:5)
So, which is it? Are Christians supposed to accept the invitation of Christ, and exchange our heavy burdens for His light one? Are we supposed to cast our burdens upon the Lord? Should we find someone else to bear our burden for us? Or, is it back to square one: each person bearing his or her own burden? The answer lies in the type of burden to be borne.
First, there is the burden of the soul’s concern for the chronic cares of survival and mortality itself. This burden will wear us down, and eventually crush us, if we try to carry it in our own strength through the everyday trials and struggles of life. This burden must be exchanged for the burden of our Master. His burden is a joyful reminder that, one day, we will spend eternity with Him. The thought that the tears, pain, and death, which are inevitable in this earthly life, will one day pass away, is a burden which is light and easy to bear.
Second, there are some burdens which God never intended for you to bear. These include physical infirmities, overwhelming circumstances, and the never-ending battle against the temptation to sin. These burdens are to be cast upon the Lord. He will bear them for us.
Third, there are some burdens which may be shared with a brother or sister in Christ. These include burdens which can be alleviated through prayer, encouragement, and charitable giving. When you see someone bearing a burden that you can share, do not hesitate to fulfill the law of Christ: “Love one another.”
Finally, there are burdens which God wants each of us to be attentive to on our own. These burdens help strengthen us, and make us more like Christ. When I am tempted to meddle with someone else’s burden just out of idle or morbid curiosity, and not a desire to truly help, I will be better off concentrating on bearing my own burden, instead.
You should put that on a blog somewhere, or preach it! great job.
thanks, I was trying to make the “top contributors” list over to the left and I got a little carried away
hahahaa.
Lisa – Thank you for this. Your devotional put me in a somewhat poetic vein.
Reading your admonition to pause, I thought first of all of Rafe Hollister on the old Andy Griffith Show singin’ at the Musicale for Mayberry Founder’s Day:
“Look down look down that lonesome road before you travel on.
Look up look up and seek your maker fore Gabriel blows his horn.
Weary totin’ such a load draggin’ down that lonesome road.
Look down look down that lonesome road before you travel on.”
That, and your comments about grace and forgiveness, put me in mind of a little ditty from my Sunday School days:
“I’m so happy and here’s the reason why,
Jesus took my burden all away.
Once my heart was heavy with a load of sin.
Jesus took the load and gave me peace within.
Now I’m singing as the days go by,
Jesus took my burden all away.”
But a little more pondering led me to think less about the burden of my wickedness and more about the burdens of my integrity. Why am I carrying my burdens so long? Because I promised. I moved inexorably to pray to God in the words of those giants of sacred music, The Rolling Stones:
“I’ll never be your beast of burden
My back is broad but it’s a hurting
All I want is for you to make love to me
I’ll never be your beast of burden
I’ve walked for miles my feet are hurting
All I want is for you to make love to me.”
Then I somehow saw my backbreaking load of integrity, not as futility but as stability – not as an anchor but as ballast to a ship otherwise too light for these deep seas. Without it, I felt myself float aimlessly like a stray balloon loosed from its string. I wound up at Wordsworth:
“Stern Daughter of the Voice of God!
O Duty! if that name thou love,
Who art a light to guide, a rod
To check the erring and reprove;
Thou, who art victory and law
When empty terrors overawe;
From vain temptations dost set free;
And calm’st the weary strife of frail humanity!”
Ministry Addict: Good post but I must quibble at one point. You wrote, “Second, there are some burdens which God never intended for you to bear. These include physical infirmities, overwhelming circumstances, and the never-ending battle against the temptation to sin.” In the larger sense, the Edenic, pre-fall sense, yes, I suppose God never intended us to bear physical infirmities. But I am Calvinist enough to believe that a chronic illness, an acquired injury, or even a mental/emotional struggle can be, in the hymn writer’s words, “a friend to grace/To help me on to God.” It is better to enter the kingdom with one hand or half an eye than to saunter into Hell whole, and perhaps sometimes God in his mercy does the amputating we ourselves would never be strong enough to perform.
Such a great point, Doug, the poet.
Not everyone sees those things as burdens in a true sense. Rather, gifts. Also related is the theology of disability, which I have covered and is searchable in my posts.
I guess I wasn’t precise enough in my language. When I wrote, “there are some burdens which God never intended for you to bear. These include physical infirmities, overwhelming circumstances, and the never-ending battle against the temptation to sin,” I didn’t mean that these things were beyond the sovereignty of God. I meant that God did not intend for us to try to bear these burdens in our own strength, without dependence on Him. I don’t think God was surprised by the Fall in the Garden of Eden, but, speaking as a person with only one working eye, I am thankful both for the lessons that I learned from my partial loss of vision AND for the fact that in His providence He saw fit to provide me with a spare.
I don’t know enough about Calvin to even know if I’m a Calvinist or not – but I do know that I was predestinated from the foundation of the world to appear on the “Top Contributor’s” list – at least for one day! :-)
I’ve read Calvin’s Institutes, and I was pleased and surprised to realize that Calvin would only have been a 2.5 point Calvinist. Related to that point: I think staunch dogmatism itself is a choice, (unless a whole bunch of people were fated to be jerks). And it is one to essentially disobey or disregard the nature of God, and our purpose to be like him.
Im a little late in this post, but maybe it will be seen by one or two who read on this website. I feel that I should bring encouragement to anyone who seeks it. Because I have been encouraged. I have sought after God and when my faith was tested, he sent a messenger in the most profound ways; people and websites like this that are undeniably God. They have come at a moment where I am discouraged, ready to drop everything and give up. In times when I have been angry (not at God or Christ or the Holy Spirit) but at myself for my own mistakes and my faith has been tested, God has been there even when I didn’t ask. I was reminded today that of the scripture: KJV.. Matthew 6:26 Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather
into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than
they? Then I put that with the next scripture: KJV…Luke 12:48 But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten
with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much
required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more. This is an answer for me personally for my own suffering. I ask, “Why God? Why do you crucify me for what seems so small comared to others?” And I believe it is because I was blessed by birth to live in a nation where I can freely worship Him, and repent and serve. And I believe through my own sin, I have created the failure in my life. Yes, He will forgive as far as the east is to the west. He will repair the damage, and he will not only restore me but provide me with a stronger foundation. If you take 100% of the people in this world and deduct from those the number who can freely do the things I can do in the United States, that I can almost freely choose my way to make a living, and can be provided that education in many cases free of charge…that I can have the things I want just for the asking….YES, I believe I am indeed judged more heavily than the next guy. Indeed I am because not only have I commited sinful acts in my life, I have done it knowing better. I am not so proud anymore that I am not willing to admit that shamefully. But for whatever reason, God hasn’t given up on me thus I am here and not in a burning hell thus HE sent His only Son to die for me so I would be able to live in paradise eternally. God literally built me a bridge through his son Jesus Christ. Who am I to complain anymore? I lay my burdens at HIS feet right now …again.. If I find employment, then it will be the kind of thing that has God’s signature on it..undeniably a miracle sent to me from God. If I don’t then I trust him enough that living under a bridge with homeless people is where he’d have me to be. Thank you all for your posts. I am sincerely humbled by reading them. You made my day. Psalms 121: For memory so if I make a mistake, you feel free to correct me.: I will lift up mine eyes to the hills from whence cometh my help, my help cometh from the Lord who made heaven and earth my help cometh from the Lord. He will not suffer thy foot to be moved. He that keepeth thee will not slumber, behold, He that keepeth Israel will never slumber nor sleep. The Lord is thy keeper the Lord shall shade thy right hand. The Lord shall preserve they going out and thy coming in from this time forth and even forever more! God Bless.
for clarification, I wasn’t implying that only one or two people read this website, I was implying that the post is over a year old and concluded that maybe it wasn’t as searched as the newer ones. Sorry if that first line was misleading. i wish I had the gift of proofreading. : D
Thanks for sharing this…I just stumbled across it and was shocked to see that it was written last year because it’s just as relevant today in this lenten season. I plan to share your thoughts and sherpa analogy with a group of young people tonight…thanks again!