Letting Go

Have you ever carried a burden? A burden so great that it made your chest hurt and caused you physical problems from stress? I have. Then yesterday I realized something. I don't have to carry it.

Human beings are funny creatures sometimes. We go through life accumulating burdens, adding to our ever-increasing load, then wonder why we feel stressed and burnt out.

For a long time I didn't know what was wrong with me. I couldn't understand why the zest had gone out of life--why I felt like there was a giant stone sitting on my chest all the time. The burden I carried was hindering my physical, emotional, and spiritual life.

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” --Matthew 11:28-30

Though Christ never promised the Christian life would be free from burdens, He did promise He would give us rest, and His burden is so much lighter than the ones we inflict on ourselves--the burdens we were never meant to carry.

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith" --Hebrews 12:1-2a

The race is already marked out for us, dear friend. We only need to let go of the burdens that hinder, fix our eyes on Christ, and run.