December 01, 2009
Cast Your Cares Upon Him
As a means of encouragement we hear believers tell one another ‘Don’t worry. God will not put more on you than you can bear’. I think the Scripture they are trying to use as a comforter comes from 1st Corinthians. The problem is that this verse is about being able to bear temptation, not about being able to bear burdens. “…And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear…” (1 Cor 10:13b NIV) It seems to me that God does in fact give us burdens we cannot carry. Honestly, if we were capable of doing all the heavy lifting of our own burdens there would be no reason to seek the Lord’s help.
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Gail;
-----Sometimes I wonder if the aversion to empirical observation so common amongst Christians exists because of the challenges it presents to their beliefs. Just a moderate amount of observation reveals that God not only allows burdens to fall upon His children, but Jesus doesn’t seem to drop out of Heaven to lift them either. In my practice, I have seen many Christians loose jobs and go bankrupt, or simply not be able to afford even a moderate comfort. I knew a sister who acquired a staff infection in her foot. It migrated to her bones. The doctors chased that infection up her leg, performing some twenty-five amputations, until they lost the race at the hip. Eventually her entire skeletal system became infected. I know other Christians who have returned home to a burned down house. I could go on. And I must point out that Jesus never descended from Heaven with fistfuls of money, effective bottles of antibiotics, or timely aimed fire-extinguishers. We live in a complex world of risk where many risks can be greatly reduced by our own decisions and behavioral patterns, or maybe even entirely averted, but many others linger about regardless of precautions. Neither does Jesus eliminate all those.
-----Don’t take me wrong, I definitely believe in God’s intervention. I have examples of it in my own life, as I am sure most every Christian does. But there is nothing automatic about His intervention between troubles and His children. Quite the opposite, I think most will agree that he leaves the greater portion of our troubles to our own measures and abilities. Any promise He might have made to us about either not burdening us beyond our ability to carry, or carrying that burden for us, would be met by His automatic intervention in every difficult situation, and we would not be able to make these observations we have made.
-----Therefore, in understanding the relationship between burdens and the actual help God does promise to His children, we must recognize the three pressure points a burden creates. The first is a physical point, which at times can careen completely out of control. If I fell over the edge of the Black Canyon, I could do nothing about hitting the rocks below. The second is psychological. If I am well trained in adapting to different situations, on the way down to the rocks, I may be able to find a way to feel ok. Especially if my third pressure point is in order - the spiritual. Knowing Jesus for who He is, I might be quite joyful to know I would be only seconds from the eternal bliss He has made available.
-----Jesus’ help for our burdens does apply to all three of these points. However, regarding the physical, we are much responsible to act wisely and avoid situations that will destroy. Regarding the second, we are responsible to think and feel carefully, humbly adapt to the circumstances of the first, and avoid attitudes that will destroy. But regarding the third, we can do little more than rest in His hands and trust that He has a good grasp on us.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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