Our burdens differ in size and shape and God’s providential ordering of our lives. What burdens do you carry?
- Physical pain, poor health, sickness or disability
- Financial hardship, debt, overspending, lack of retirement planning
- Losses and lack of normalcy from COVID
- Marriage tension or distance
- School confusion
- Separation from friends
- G.Job stress, job loss, job fit, career uncertainty
- Family concerns, kids’ school, caring for parents, parents not caring
- Spiritual habits lacking, temptation, guilt, at odds with God
- Mental or emotional imbalance, anger, anxiety, addiction
- Friends or neighbors too far (isolation) or too close (demanding)
- Unresolved trouble, hopelessness, too many mistakes
- Other:
FIRST DO THIS
If it is a burden for you, take it up in your heart. Carry it there right now, consciously. Because you do it all the time subconsciously.
Now name it. “My burden is _____________.” Don’t move on until you can call it something otherwise it acts like it doesn’t exist. But you know it does. Name it. Now.
Own it. Confess to Jesus that it is hard to carry. It limits you too much. Takes too much energy. Demands too much time. Costs too much money. Delivers too much pain. It doesn’t let you be yourself. Doesn’t let you think, create, love, rest, pray, write, explore, move on, or work.
Now, I want you to give it away in your mind and heart right now. And do that by exhaling. Close your eyes, c’mon it’s safe. Pretend you’re putting a blindfold on and focus. Close your eyes. As you exhale, your are in your mind speaking it, breathing it away—like on a freezing day you can see your breath, air particles, blowing like smoke out of you, diffused, gone, this is like the Holy Spirit now who is God’s breath, wind, and he carries your burden away.
This burden is not yours to carry. It is God’s and he bears it for you by his grace … but also by his Church.
Some say, “I don’t need others, because I can cast my cares on God.” Indeed. And God often cares for you, and carries for you, by using others around you.
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).
“Carry each other’s burdens” (Galatians 6:2).
PRAYER: I carry more than you want me to carry, Lord, when I take my burdens up without needing you. Without needing others. This is my own selfish pride. I think I’m good at it, even better than you. It’s time for you to take my burdens, and I trust you. Thank you for holding me up by your grace, and by the church. Amen.
FURTHER MEDITATION: Read Matthew 26:38. Jesus goes to his Father in the company of his closest friends. You need the Father. You need others.