Beast of Burden?

Any concern too small to be turned into a prayer is too small to be made into a burden. 

(Corrie Ten Boom)

Come to me all of you who are tired from the heavy burden you have been forced to carry. I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28)

There are far too many burdens being carried by people today that they were never created to carry. Some are of our own making, while others are really cast upon us because someone in our life didn't do what they were supposed to, leaving us to bear something we never thought we'd be carrying. A new year is a great time to consider what it is we have been 'carrying' that perhaps wasn't intended for us to carry. God's plan from the beginning was that every 'burden' was to be 'unloaded' at the feet of Jesus - nothing being too hard for him.

What happens when we carry a burden? We all know they can make us tire easily and even make our mental capacity a little too 'crammed full' for our liking. What we may not realize is how the burden we are carrying, even the ones we know are our responsibility, is that they actually change the way we 'walk'. Consider the beast of burden known as the mule - created solely to carry burdens but doing it a bit too grudgingly at times. We've all likely seen or heard of the mule that becomes too 'dug in' that the one asking for it to move forward has a struggle on their hands. I wonder if God is asking any of us to move forward today, but the burden we are carrying is making us 'dig in deeper' in our stubbornness, refusing to move at all?

Even the beast of burden doesn't carry the burden forever. At some point, it is unloaded, perhaps to be 'reloaded' again with a new burden, but it has a period of rest from burdens. God doesn't want us to be burdened, unloaded and burdened again. He wants us to be 'unloaded' once and for all. The responsibilities we consider to be burdens in our life may just feel like a burden because we have become so accustomed to bearing up under something we weren't supposed to bear ourselves! For example, parenting may be a burden right now, but what other burdens are we carrying that are actually making us feel that way? Sometimes we need to unload at the feet of Jesus and feel what it is like to be burden-free again. Then the things we know are our responsibilities may just feel a little less like a burden and a whole lot more like a blessing. Just sayin!