Cast your burden on the LORD,
and he will sustain you;
he will never allow the righteous to be shaken (Psalm 55:22, CSB).
The more life we live, the more we understand what it is to feel burdened. We face multiple deadlines that somehow all need to be met at the same time. We have to schedule yet another appointment and pay yet another bill. We find ourselves picking up the slack for others. We encounter forks in the road and stress about which decision is the right one. We worry about the well-being of our loved ones.
In a sense, I think it’s right to have things weighing on us. The burden not only indicates that we have been given responsibility, but that the responsibility matters to us.
In another sense, there are times when the burdens of life simply feel like too much. Our shoulders throb and our knees buckle under the sheer weight of life. It feels like one more traffic-laden commute, one more urgent problem, or one more request will cause us to snap, to collapse, to fall.
In Psalm 55:22, David asserts that the Lord “will never allow the righteous to be shaken.” And yet how often do we feel shaken? We lose our composure. We crumple under pressure. We struggle to carry it all. We disappoint others as well as ourselves. How do we reconcile David’s assertion when life is so unstable and we are so weak?
God’s Word doesn’t tell us that the Christian life is without burdens and stress. We are not saved from the responsibilities and difficulties of life. What we gain as Christians is God’s strength and wisdom in bearing those responsibilities and difficulties.
So where do we tend to get things wrong when it comes to burden-bearing? And how can Scripture course-correct us so that we can experience the stability God promises?
CASTING OUR BURDENS
I can speak for myself and say that one mistake I make is that I don’t follow the exhortation at the beginning of Psalm 55:22; I don’t cast my burden on the Lord. I hold onto it. I absorb all the weight myself as if I have the strength to carry it alone.
Why do I again and again sabotage myself in this way? If I’m honest, it’s because I don’t want to give up control. I want the task to be done a certain way, so I don’t accept help, and sometimes I even take over someone else’s responsibilities. I don’t want to let anyone down, so I commit to too much and then kill myself getting it all done. I don’t want to make the wrong decision, so I fret and overanalyze every last detail and every foreseeable outcome.
It’s overwhelming to carry it all, but doing so gives me a distorted sense of power. I will master my circumstances. No one else can manage this as well as I can. If I let go, then I risk giving up my influence or putting my reputation at risk, and my pride doesn’t like that.
To cast my burden on the Lord looks like admitting that I don’t have control and that I am weak.
But what does this look like practically?
THE BURDEN OF SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS
Part of casting our burdens on the Lord is evaluating which burdens are ours to carry in the first place. Burdens can be equated with responsibilities, but how often are we absorbing responsibilities that don’t belong to us?
For example, we can burden ourselves with the responsibility of earning righteousness. Jesus accused the experts in the Mosaic law of weighing others down with burdens that were hard to carry (Luke 11:46). They were teaching that righteousness depended upon one’s ability to conduct themselves according to strict man-made rules that had been added to the law.
Don’t we do the same to ourselves sometimes? In our desire to be right with God, we develop practices that become laws unto ourselves: Thou shall not fall behind on your Bible-reading plan, decline a serving opportunity, miss a Bible study, or give less than ten percent to your church.
However, we don’t earn righteousness by doing works; we receive it by believing in Jesus Christ (Galatians 2:16). Yes, as people of God, we pursue righteousness (1 Timothy 6:11), but the pursuit is only possible because Jesus met the standard we could never meet. This is why Jesus says that His yoke is easy and His burden is light (Matthew 11:30); His is the yoke of faith, not works.
God has not made us responsible for earning our righteous standing before Him. We need to be careful not to obey our own customs as if they are on equal footing with God’s commands.
THE BURDEN OF OUTCOMES
We can also burden ourselves with the responsibility of controlling outcomes. When the Lord spoke to Joshua before the Israelites entered the promised land, He charged him in this way: “Above all, be strong and very courageous to observe carefully the whole instruction my servant Moses commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right or the left, so that you will have success wherever you go” (Joshua 1:7).
The burden the Lord placed on Joshua was not to gain possession of the land – at least not directly. Joshua’s obligation was to obey, and as a result, the Lord would make him successful in possessing the land.
When we take on the burden of outcomes, we assume full responsibility for our own success. It’s completely up to us to get the job offer; choose the right degree, contractor, house, or treatment plan; or meet the stated objectives – which makes it completely our fault if we don’t get the job, the choice we made doesn’t pan out, or we fall short of the goal. Considering how little we know about or control in life, we are setting ourselves up to be crushed by this impossible burden.
Thankfully, God has not made us responsible for ensuring certain outcomes. We can trust that as we walk in obedience to His revealed will, He will give us success on His terms. In other words, if we trust and obey Him, He will make our paths straight (Proverbs 3:5-6). The outcomes are in His hands, not ours. This knowledge should lift a huge weight off of us.
THE BURDEN OF OTHER PEOPLE’S CHOICES
Similarly, we can burden ourselves with the responsibility of other people’s choices. Between Jesus’s resurrection and ascension, He had a conversation with Peter where He indicated what kind of death Peter would die (John 21:18-19). As Peter absorbed this news, he saw John and asked, “Lord, what about him?” (John 21:21).
Jesus’s answer was this: “If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you? As for you, follow me” (John 21:22).
Maybe Peter wanted to know if he would be the only disciple martyred for his faith, or maybe he was concerned about what would happen to John. Regardless, Jesus’s imperative is the same: Don’t focus on what’s going to happen to him; focus on following Me.
How often do we let our attention drift from Jesus and onto what other people are doing? Certainly we should make an effort to turn others from sin and error (James 5:20), but they will ultimately give an account to the Lord; we are not responsible for their sin. It’s expected that we teach others the way of wisdom (Proverbs 4:11), but we cannot make anyone walk on straight paths; we are not responsible for their foolishness. We ought to remind each other of what God says in His Word, but none of us are the Holy Spirit (John 14:26). We do not oversee anyone’s regeneration and renewal (Titus 3:5); God is the one who started a good work in each of His people, and He bears responsibility for carrying it on to completion in each individual saint (Philippians 1:6).
God has not made us responsible for the choices other people make. Inevitably, following Jesus will lead us to correct, counsel, warn, and exhort others, but we can do so free of the burden that it’s up to us to ensure they walk in righteousness and wisdom.
THE BURDEN OF PEOPLE-PLEASING
We can also burden ourselves with the responsibility of pleasing other people. Paul got right to the heart of this in Galatians 1:10: “For am I now trying to persuade people, or God? Or am I striving to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.”
Fear of man can be a sneaky thing because it often masquerades as sacrificial service and humble love. How often do we answer the phone call, alter our plans, or take on an additional commitment because we are worried about letting someone down? We want people to like us, or we can’t stand the thought of disappointing someone, or we are afraid others will think less of us, and those motives become the driver.
The first problem with this is that we can’t possibly please everyone. If the phone call comes while I’m with my family, I can take the call and risk irritating my family or ignore the call and risk disappointing the caller. If altering my plans requires me to cancel on someone else or leave a commitment undone, someone will be put out. If saying yes to another activity or obligation stretches me too thin, then I’m bound to drop a ball and let someone down eventually.
But the bigger problem is that people-pleasing is in direct conflict with serving Christ. A servant by definition has a master – someone they answer to. Jesus says that no one can serve two masters (Matthew 6:24), and while He specifically says you cannot serve both God and money, Galatians 1:10 teaches that you cannot both serve God and be a people-pleaser. At the end of the day, it’s what the Lord tells us to do that matters, and He is the one we answer to.
God has not made us responsible for satisfying other people. Of course, we are to serve others and consider them as more important than ourselves (Philippians 2:3), but there are times when saying yes to the Lord (i.e., obedience) means letting someone down or being misunderstood. As hard as that can be, we must rest in the knowledge that serving Christ is actually the lighter burden.
THE BURDEN OF SELF-SUFFICIENCY
There are plenty of burdens that are in fact ours to carry. We can’t just abandon the responsibilities we have as spouses, sons and daughters, parents, employees, students, and church members. The weight of a burden is not something to avoid, but to evaluate. After casting off the burdens of self-righteousness, control over outcomes and other people, and people-pleasing, we may still be left with a load that threatens to crush us. What then?
In these instances, we need to be careful not to further burden ourselves with the responsibility of self-sufficiency. Yes, it is our duty to be loyal to our spouses, honor and care for our parents, train up our children, complete our assignments, and fulfill our commitments. There are plenty of obligations we would be wrong to try and outsource. However, God has not designed us for independence, and He hasn’t left us to bear our burdens alone.
First, we are to carry one another’s burdens (Galatians 6:2), to support and steady each other. This means we ourselves need people to help us when we’re overwhelmed and unstable.
When Amalek came and fought against Israel, Moses stood at the top of a hill and held up God’s staff in his hand. As long as his hand remained raised, Israel prevailed in battle. But the battle went on long enough that Moses’s hand became unsteady, and when he would lower it, Amalek would gain the upper hand. Instead of Moses insisting he muster physical strength he did not have, he allowed Aaron and Hur to support his hands so that they remained steady until Israel had final victory (Exodus 17:8-13).
We need to invite trusted friends to come alongside us and accept their help so we can remain steady. Moses didn’t pass off God’s staff to Aaron or Hur, but they supported him so he could keep it raised. When we are growing shaky while bearing our God-given responsibilities, we can ask for and receive the help we need to keep standing firm. It goes a long way when we allow others to pray for us, accompany us, and take less important responsibilities off of us so that we can focus our energy on what is most weighty.
But more than allowing people to help us, we need to look to the Lord to help us. God says that His power is not hindered by our weakness, but perfected in it (2 Corinthians 12:9). We cry out to Him to help us and trust that His grace will be sufficient to give us the strength we need. We obey His command to not worry about tomorrow (Matthew 6:34) and focus only on what He has given us to bear today.
God has not made us responsible for bearing our burdens alone. He gives us strength through His Spirit and through His people – if only we ask for and receive it.
There are many Christians who, when enduring difficult trials, say something like, “I don’t know how I could do this without the Lord.” When the burdens of life are overwhelming, He will be faithful to supernaturally uphold us. He will be with us to strengthen us, help us, and hold on to us with His righteous right hand (Isaiah 41:10).
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