Weight Lifting

Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”

Matthew 11:28-30

 

One piece of counsel I give to Sheriff's Department New Hires is simple yet very visual and practical: "Every time you feel stressed, anxious, upset, or angry take a piece of gravel and put it in your cargo pocket."  Why does this work?  Because when we add just a few ounces of extra burden to our lives, we don't really notice any difference at first. We figure we can handle the extra burden, so we ignore it and keep moving.  However, over time the burden becomes heavy enough that we notice and we become irritated by the extra burden.  The final step comes when the extra burden becomes heavy enough to make functioning a real effort.  This is when I usually get a "I hate you" phone call.  Then the counsel becomes, "When your burden becomes heavy enough for you to notice, it's past time to deal with it."  Which opens the door for a conversation about letting go of the burdens we cannot change.

 

Not everything we encounter is under our control!  These are the situations where we must realize that HOW we respond to these situations that determines whether or not we will carry that burden or not.

 

Jesus tells us that we need to come to Him.  When we come to Him, we give Him ALL of our burdens, concerns, disappointments, frustrations, anxieties, stresses and LEAVE them all with Him to deal with.  When we are able to do that, our lives will become MUCH brighter and lighter!

World's Strongest

Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson, who is 6'9" and weighs in right at 400 pounds. At 29 years old, he is the World's Strongest Man.  The feats of strength he performed to gain this auspicious title are mind boggling!  If you have ever seen the Game of Thrones, he played the part of "Mountain."  This is quite an intimidating individual and enormously strong, and yet.....

When Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls" Jesus was talking to Hafþór as much as He was talking to you and me.  The burdens we ALL carry are not the burdens which can be seen, save only by those who truly know us.

Think of the burdens we tend to carry: 
"Oh no, the refrigerator broke, how are we going to afford a new one and what about all the food that will spoil." 

"Why do these people want to yell at me for something I have no control over?"

"My child is in the hospital and is so sick the doctors are stumped."

"I just can't seem to understand what the professor is talking about and if I fail this test, I lose my scholarship."

"I've worked hard all my life and now I am tired, but don't have enough money to retire."

There are millions of similar burdens we carry within us and they will build up and build up until we implode into full blown depression. Each one is a distraction, taking our attention off the One who offers to carry our burdens for us.  Let me ask you, How many burdens do you think Jesus is carrying?  And yet He reminds us that He wants to carry ALL of our burdens.

Jesus carries our sin. He carries our shame. He carried them all the way to the cross and laid them all down at the Throne of God having washed them in His blood.  How often do we Thank Him for that?  How often are we mule-headed and tell Jesus "I've got this" only to waste so much time and energy in worry and inner turmoil? How do we get rest from our burdens? By taking Jesus at His word and let Him deal with them.

Think about it. 

The Burden Trap

I took my troubles to the Lord;
    I cried out to him, and he answered my prayer.

Psalm 120:1 

 

I learn a lot from watching  Animal Planet and the other educational channels.  One of the things I learned was the method used by some tribes in the Amazon to capture monkeys.  They take a gourd and make a hole in one end just big enough for a monkey to get his hand in, and then they put berries and nuts in the gourd.  The monkey wants the goodies inside the gourd and reaches in to get them, only to discover that when he grips the goodies, his fist is too big to pull out.  

 

Now, in our minds, we think "Why doesn't the monkey just let go of the goodies and pull his hand out?".  Good question!  However, since we aren't monkeys....   

 

In all reality, we are like the monkey in our refusal to let go so we can be rescued.  Let me ask you, how many grudges are getting carried when it would be so much less stressful to let them go?  How many hurts do we keep instead of letting them go so they can heal?  How many situations that we have no control over do we still gripe about?

 

Whatever burden we carry, Jesus understands and is willing to carry our burdens to God's heart....if we are willing to: Let....them....go!

Woosah Is Achievable!

WOOSAH RULE #2:

Let God Handle It!

Give your burdens to the Lord,
    and he will take care of you.
    He will not permit the godly

to slip and fall.

~ Psalm 55:22

We carry around burdens that we have no business carrying. We bear burdens we need to drop. We drag around baggage that needs to be left by the wayside.

But we carry it because we’ve had it so long we’d be lost without it.  We carry it because we think God has “more important” things to deal with.  We haul them around because the enemy keeps reminding us of them!

Point him to the Cross!

Give your burdens to God (which means let them go). 

We're Hoarders!!!

No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead

Philippians 3:13

I recently had to move from my desk to a cubicle at work.  During the packing up of all my stuff, it hit me like a box of books (quite literally a box of books), I had accumulated WAY too much stuff.  Thus, the paring down began, before the Hoarders television crew arrived.

Thinking about this for a bit, I also began to realize how much emotional, spiritual, cognitive hoarding I had done.  When I started thinking about it, I realized that there was a LOT that I needed to let go of, in order to run the race God has set before me with any hope of success.  The more I thought about it, I began writing down some of the baggage I had been hauling around.

     *   Trying to be perfect for others so they will think I'm "holy"
     *   Being angry for something someone said about me.
     *   Guilt for not being able to be everywhere at once.
     *   The stress of wanting to learn more to help others, while I'm trying to help others.
     *   Feeling like I'm not, nor will ever be, "good enough."
     *   Fear of saying or doing something stupid at the most inappropriate time.
     *   The failures my life has been littered with.

The list actually got quite extensive and specific, but my point is, I needed to let it go.  Let God have it and trust Him to deal with it.  

Burdened?

The Lord deserves praise!
Day after day he carries our burden,
the God who delivers us.

Psalm 68:19

 

If you have ever served in the military: first, Thank You for your service; second, you know what it is to have to carry your gear with you everywhere you go.  Not only do you have to carry your rifle, ammunition, and cleaning kit.  Then you must add to that your rations for the mission, change of clothing (especially socks), water, shelter, any specialized gear you will require, any personalized items you wish to carry, and the list can be endless.  So you'll understand when I say, that's one heavy burden to have to log around every step of your mission. I can remember the BEST part of a field training exercise was the moment when you got to drop your rucksack and relax for a few moments.  

 

The law enforcement officers I get to work with have much the same issue. They have to wear ballistic vests (which do not breathe, by the way), their gear, the notebooks, pens, ammunition, weapons, personal gear and they have to take this with them every step of everywhere they go.  Every once in a while, when they let me ride with them, I have the opportunity to help carry something for them and the look of gratitude (momentary though it may be) is amazing.

 

But think about this, we carry with us, every step of our lives, our daily burdens. Concerns about family; calculating how much we have left until payday; wanting to be there for your children's special moments; wanting to have some time to just enjoy; wondering about your family's safety while you're away; job pressures; extended family pressures; trying to save for, plan for, and enjoying vacations (we go so much and do so much on vacation that we often forget to relax); and the list goes on and on.

 

If we remember, God's got us.  Whatever we struggle with, God's already provided for it.  Whatever our concern, God's already dealt with it.  Perhaps not the way we wanted or expected, but always, ALWAYS for our good.

 

Time To Strip Down!

We are surrounded by a great cloud of people whose lives tell us what faith means. So let us run the race that is before us and never give up. We should remove from our lives anything that would get in the way and the sin that so easily holds us back.

Hebrews 12:1

In the days of the original Olympic games, the athletes participated in their events without any sort of uniform, or with any clothing at all for that matter.  Why? Because it was considered to be more fair and equal to run without any sort of hindrance or burden.  Look at our Olympic athletes today, especially the runners.  They wear as little as possible and it is as lightweight as possible so as to not be a hindrance to their performance.

Yet as we stroll through life, many of us struggle to walk because of all that we are carrying.  Marital issues, family discord, financial burdens, job struggles, emotional struggles, health issues, addictions, arrogance, laziness, not doing what we know is the right thing....they just seem to keep piling up.  Eventually, we are barely able to claw another inch forward.  Our lives become more of a burden than a joy.  And we wonder why.

The writer of Hebrews tells us that we should RUN the race that is our life and NEVER give up.  How can this be possible?  By removing, letting go of, dropping ANYTHING that holds us down and especially any sin that burdens us.

Think about this:  This means we need to let go of what we cannot control (which is pretty much everything) and allow God to help shape our lives so we can run with the Grace that He offers us.  That means we will have to make some changes, especially in ourselves.  It also means we cannot keep those around us who drain us.