Are you feeling overwhelmed? Sometimes you feel totally bowed down by burdens that you have to carry. Could you break down in tears now, if you would allow yourself.
Did you know that God does not want you to carry these burdens by yourself? He asks you to give them to Him. (Psalm 55:22) “Cast your burden on the LORD, and He shall sustain you; He shall never permit the righteous to be moved.”
How can we live in continual rest? How can we cast our burdens on to Him? I need to know this.
God commanded the people that they must not bring any burdens through the gates of the city on the day of rest. The word for burdens is “masa” and depicts the packs upon the backs of the donkeys or camels. It can even mean an utterance, especially of doom. We can allow these burdens to take complete authority in our lives or we can release them to the Lord.
Mike says – “your precision is activated by your decision.” The decisions we make are important. We can choose to live defeated, overwhelmed with burdens and depressed or we can choose joy.
If you want to live in the rest and peace of God, you must leave your burdens at the gate of your heart. Yes, many trials, heartaches, and burdens come our way. But you must not lift them up and carry them through the gate of your heart and mind. Leave them outside! God is able to bear the burden that you cannot bear.
Here are some people from the Bible that we can look to for guidance in staying strong and connected to God during tough times:
King David
King David knows a thing or two about being overwhelmed, from being relentlessly pursued by King Saul (father of his best friend) to witnessing the loss of his son with Bathsheba to being informed by God that he wouldn’t have the opportunity to build God’s temple (due to sending Bathsheba’s husband to his death). King David showed a variety of emotions in the Bible – shared extensively in the book of Psalms – but despite the plethora of emotions, he still turned to God and gave Him glory. He demonstrated that by sharing your feelings with God, God will present ways to navigate through them. God did just that, later calling David “a man after God’s own heart.”
Ruth
For Ruth, life took a disastrous turn when not only her father-in-law and brother-in-law passed away, but so did her husband. Now left childless and with a bitter mother-in-law, Naomi, she made the choice to honor her commitment to Naomi’s family and follow Naomi to her former homeland. Talk about being overwhelmed. However, Ruth taught us that when life doesn’t make sense, the best approach is to focus on helping others, which Ruth did in caring for Naomi. God blessed her efforts with a devoted husband, a son, and a sense of belonging.
Job
When it comes to someone who has definitely experienced every definition of the word overwhelmed, Job is the one who comes to mind. A man of great wealth and prestige, he experienced the ultimate reversal of fortune when animals, riches, and even some children died one right after the other. His friends believed Job caused his own demise; his wife told him to curse God and die. But Job instead clung to God, believing God was still to be praised when all was taken away. God honored Job by restoring everything he had lost, even doubling it.
There probably aren’t many people in the world today who can say they aren’t feeling overwhelmed in some area of their lives. There seems to be more upside-down in our world than right side up, and the Bible warns us of this as a reminder that our real home is not here, but elsewhere.
However, being overwhelmed just presents us with the opportunity to turn our attention back to God, back to His Word, and back to realizing that feeling overwhelmed is only temporary if we keep moving forward. We can be shocked by what is happening in this world, but we can also know that if we keep our eyes on God and believe He will use these times for good, we will see the blessings in disguise.
Don’t bring self-pity, depressions, constant worrying, and tensions inside your heart. Leave them. Truly begin to walk in victory. Make a decision today! Don’t get overwhelmed! Take your burdens to the Lord and leave them there.