Sometimes life can seem to be just too much. If it isn’t your own troubles that beset you, it is the distress you witness in your friends and loved ones. To top it off, there are the burdens of people you don’t know, but of whom you have heard and you feel obliged to add their anguish to the heavy load you are already bearing. No, you don’t have to take on any of these burdens other than your own, but the love of Christ within you constrains you to do so.
It is the love you have for Christ and for all men and women that makes you want the best for everyone else. You wish for them salvation if they are unsaved; you wish for them health and prosperity; you want them, saved or unsaved, to know God as you do. God is surely a mighty rock of defense. It is the shade of that Rock that comforts and keeps us in the hot, weary trek through the burning sands of life. You know God is everything you need Him to be and you want so much to impart that critical knowledge to the world. Every person who is living has his or her stressful times and they all need Christ as their hope, their rock, their peace and joy.
It is the compelling love of Christ that we share with Him for the world that causes a good deal of our stress. There are times when all we have to rely on is the intellectual knowledge that God exists and that He really does care about us. At that time there is no “feeling,” no warm emotional sensation to which to cling. Those are the periods of your walk with God when you are enduring – barely – but you are terribly battered and beaten by the waves of misfortune dashing high and collapsing down around you, completely engulfing you.
You are holding on solely by the “head” knowledge you have of the existence and compassion of God. It is a hard knowledge, offering little comfort. Nevertheless it does have a modicum of consolation; it does contain what you need for the present time.
But you – or I should say, we – are only human. As we see the rising distress in the world, the painful lives that most people are enduring, and then we look at our own burdens, we tend to falter at times. It seems so hopeless. We know what we have, and the knowledge carries us through our daily trials, but when we add to our burdens those of a world of hurting, desperate creatures – the weight is crushing.
What can we do? We can’t throw off the burdens of our brothers and sisters and fellow creatures – the love of Christ within us will not let us do that. So how do we handle this weight of the world that is crushing our frail shoulders? There is only one thing to do: We take our burdens to Jesus, and that includes the burdens of others as well as our own.
I have found that I need to feel the need of my fellowman in order to pray effectually for him or her. I deliberately pray that God will help me to put myself in my brother or sister’s place and feel their pain and distress as my own. This may sound somewhat selfish, but if the hurt he endures becomes my hurt, I will cry the more passionately to God for him. Then, when I have poured out my soul to God, I release the burden to Him. This is necessary because no one is capable of carrying the weight of the world on their back at all times without going off the deep end. Continued worry can make you susceptible to all sorts of physical and mental ailments. And that is not seemly for a child of God.
Meanwhile God, the God you know at that time very unemotionally, is looking on your struggle. He sees your heart and knows that you want to please Him. You want to do His will, but the pounding waves are just about to wash you away to an inglorious end. God knows when the time is just right to deliver you. When that time occurs, then, somehow, by the grace and love of God, a sermon or a song or a small voice inside you will cause the intellectual knowledge you have of God to be infused into your spirit. It will flood your heart and seem to permeate every cell of your physical body. You will feel, not just know in your mind, that God exists and that He cares so very much for you
These two factors – the intellectual knowledge and the emotional awareness – are essential to our spiritual existence. I have often criticized the over-dependence we have on our emotions or how we feel at the moment. This criticism is still valid, but I have to admit we can never make it through our many adversities without our emotions being involved. An intellectual and emotional awareness of the existence and unsurpassed love of God are alike indispensable in the life of the believer.
But, as we have seen, emotional awareness will come and go. Our emotions run high today and low tomorrow, thus making it imperative that we have drilled deep into our minds and hearts that God is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. Then when the emotional fuel runs low, as it must, we will have the reserve of head knowledge to fall back on. It is not an easy option, but it will take us through every obstacle. We just have to cling to the belief in the existence and dependability of our God.
The conclusion of the matter is this: Be concerned and involved in the plight of your fellowman and your own self. I would even dare to say, worry about the plight of both him and you, but only to a degree. Let that mounting worry make you run quickly and often to Jesus for help with the overwhelming load of care: He will help you to bear it. Unquestionably you cannot bear the burden alone.
But, after you have eased the burden onto the shoulders of the Almighty, the weight of it or another burden will soon come back, and that’s as it should be. You are a person who loves and you will always be involved in someone else’s difficult experiences as well as your own. They will return to weight you down, but then you go running to the One who carries all your burdens and once again you pour out your soul to Him. He will help you, He will help the one for whom you are praying, and through it all He will keep the minds of both of you in perfect peace – if you both keep your faith in the Lord Jesus.
You will note I did not say you won’t stumble nor did I go so far as to say you won’t fall. Whether you continue to walk upright or stumble or fall, all you or I or any other believer has to do is keep their faith in Jesus Christ. Faith in Christ is the victory that overcomes the world.
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