Surrender Your Burdens

“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 (NLT)

Burden: A load, especially a heavy one; something that is carried; a serious or difficult responsibility you have to deal with.

How can a burden be light?

Jesus promises to give us rest from our heavy burdens. But I think we view discipleship as a burden in itself – we look at it as something piled on top of our already burdened lives. We simply aren’t ready to turn everything over to Jesus.

There are many reasons for this; not the least of which is the fear of letting go of control. This type of fear is pure nonsense, really; because we are not and never will be in control; God is. And until we completely understand this, we carry very heavy burdens indeed.

And then there’s “the time factor.” You know the cliché: “there aren’t enough hours in the day.” We can’t imagine adding one more thing like prayer, Bible, or Devotional reading to our already burdened schedule. But God says in Malachi, 

“Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this, says the Lord Almighty, and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have enough room for it.”

I am convinced that this passage is not limited to our tithing of money or other gifts. God wants one-tenth of our time. He longs to commune with you. He desires fellowship with you. And the more you seek Him, the lighter your burdens become.

And I want to share with you a phenomenon that is difficult to explain: If you give God more of your time, He will multiply the leftovers, just as Jesus did with the loaves and fishes. But don’t take my word for it; test it yourself as in the Malachi verses. And I promise you that He will do the same for you.

Begin surrendering your burdens and prepare to be amazed at what God Does.

Photo by Skeeze from Pixabay