God, give me grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things which should be changed, and the Wisdom to distinguish the one from the other. Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time, accepting hardship as a pathway to peace, taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it, trusting that You will make all things right, if I surrender to Your will, so that I may be reasonably happy in this life, and supremely happy with You forever in the next. Amen.
~ Reinhold Niebuhr
Thus says the LORD: “In a time of favor I have answered you; in a day of salvation I have helped you; I will keep you and give you as a covenant to the people, to establish the land, to apportion the desolate heritages, saying to the prisoners, ‘Come out,’ to those who are in darkness, ‘Appear.’ They shall feed along the ways; on all bare heights shall be their pasture; they shall not hunger or thirst, neither scorching wind nor sun shall strike them, for He who has pity on them will lead them, and by springs of water will guide them. And I will make all My mountains a road, and My highways shall be raised up. Behold, these shall come from afar, and behold, these from the north and from the west, and these from the land of Syene.” Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth; break forth, O mountains, into singing! For the LORD has comforted His people and will have compassion on His afflicted. But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me; my Lord has forgotten me.” “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before Me.
~ from Isaiah 49
Oh beloved, it is true. There is a weight pushing down on us that will crush us. But the weight is not the things that we are carrying. The weight is the overpressure of the glory of G_d. His Life and light and Love and fame do indeed overshadow anything or any circumstance in which we may find ourselves. Yet, it is in light of this truth, that we still will trouble ourselves by looking at the troubles in our lives.
We feel the pressure of time.
We sense the displeasure of others.
We hear the siren song of chemicals.
We remember our failed relationships.
We carry the burden of past wounds and mistakes.
We sense the anxiety of our lives.
We hold onto grudges and bitterness.
We listen to the lusts of our eyes and flesh.
We hear the voices that tell us we won’t make it.
With each of these senses, we know they are not really things to which we should pay any attention. But give them attention we do. And as we accommodate these spoilers of our soul, they bind themselves more tightly around us. They are like some sort of constrictor-serpent giving us less room to breathe with each breath we exhale.
As the anxiety and panic of not being able to breath overtakes us, we know for sure that we need to get rid of the burdens. And in the panic, we begin to struggle to get away from them. We flex and push and try and struggle to quit listening to the voices and stressors and burdens as they dig into our flesh.
We ache and try, but they just seem to get heavier as we try to lift them off our shoulders. We know that we should in no ways be carrying burdens such as these, but the more that we focus on them, the heavier they seem to become.
And He says, “Put it down child. Let go of it.”
We answer, “I am trying to get this stuff off of me! I am working to push it off of me! Can’t you see that Father?”
“I did not say try to squirm out of your burden. I said let go of it. It will fall away.”
And we say, “But what if i drop it Father? Won’t i be injured? Won’t it tear a muscle, or smash my feet or something?”
“No. Because it has no power other than what you give it. The problems and stresses you sense have no momentum or potential energy or force behind them. They do not actually ‘exist’ other than in your flesh and soulish mind.”
He continues, “My Son declared all of this Finished at the cross. And He put the forces of darkness and sickness and death to open shame in that Work. And when you turned to Us for forgiveness, We not only saved you from the sins you have committed, but We also set you free from the ‘self’ which gives rise to the compulsions you are feeling right now to worry. Put them down child.”
“But…”
“Child, you are written in the palms of My Hands. I have made you, saved you, redeemed you, and set you free. Absolutely nothing can change this. Nothing. Put it down. Let it go.”
Then, somehow we do. Oh the joy! And in letting the burdens fall away, we realize that (as always) He is right. The burdens we thought we were carrying were actually distractions from the only weight we should be feeling; that being the warm pressure of His incredibly powerful and gentle Hands holding us in a way that lets us know we are totally and completely and everlastingly fine.
So, are you feeling the burden beloved? May this fool of a writer preach for a moment? Stop trying to quit worrying. Stop trying to get out of the mess. Stop trying to push the burden up off your shoulders. Let them fall away instead. And in letting them go, you will find that they really never held any real power over you anyway. Tonight is your night. Time to live free in the palm of your Father’s Hands.
