Today’s Readings: Psalm 146; Genesis 27:30-45; Luke 1:1-25; Acts 14:8-18; Psalm 81
In preparations for this Sunday’s worship service, I’m working with the second half of Sunday’s Gospel reading from Matthew. The second half of that reading has to do with Jesus’ words instructing his followers with heavy burdens to lay them down. The benefit of laying those burdens down? Rest! Those words leapt immediately to mind as I read today’s second Psalm – Psalm 81 for verses 6 and 7 of that Psalm read: “I took the world off your shoulders, freed you from a life of hard labor. You called out your pain; I got you out of a bad place” (The Message). Most folks outside of the faith assume that having your burdens lifted - or having the world taken off your shoulders - means that when you turn to God your problems magically disappear. In fact, some seekers turn to God with this expectation – conceptualizing God as a wand that they only have to wave in order to make all their problems disappear. Not so. In fact, over the years I’ve learned time after time that people of faith face the same number of problems in their life as people who claim no faith; the only thing that difference is how they handle those problems. Case in point, my friend Evelyn. Evelyn and her husband Denny gave me one of my first paid jobs ever – working around their farmhouse when I was just 12. She and Denny were a couple of real characters. But in the lunches I shared with them in the middle of my workdays, I got to know them pretty well. One thing I learned was that they were people of VERY deep and abiding faith. Evelyn was in her late sixties when I first worked for them, and over the course of the next ten years I watched her face many problems. First, she faced her husband’s illness and death. Next, she faced the loss of her family farm. And finally she faced the onset of aggressive lung cancer – a cancer that would soon claim her life. As you can see, by most people’s standards Evelyn had a pretty heavy set of burdens to carry. No matter what problem arose, however, Evelyn refused to carry the burdens. She kept turning them over to God. And even on the day of my last visit to her in the hospital, Evelyn had more peace and joy than anyone I had ever met. To use today’s words of the psalmist, God had gotten her out of the bad place. So where are you at in terms of facing the burdens of your life? Are you trying to manage and resolve them yourself, or are taking them off of your own shoulders and placing them on Someone else’s? If you are still trying to manage the unmanageable, I would encourage you to cry out to God in the midst of your own pain and frustration. Even though the external circumstances you face might not change (at least overnight or perhaps not at all), as you cry out you can take peace knowing that you are well on your way to getting out of your bad place no matter what happens. Til next time…
In preparations for this Sunday’s worship service, I’m working with the second half of Sunday’s Gospel reading from Matthew. The second half of that reading has to do with Jesus’ words instructing his followers with heavy burdens to lay them down. The benefit of laying those burdens down? Rest! Those words leapt immediately to mind as I read today’s second Psalm – Psalm 81 for verses 6 and 7 of that Psalm read: “I took the world off your shoulders, freed you from a life of hard labor. You called out your pain; I got you out of a bad place” (The Message). Most folks outside of the faith assume that having your burdens lifted - or having the world taken off your shoulders - means that when you turn to God your problems magically disappear. In fact, some seekers turn to God with this expectation – conceptualizing God as a wand that they only have to wave in order to make all their problems disappear. Not so. In fact, over the years I’ve learned time after time that people of faith face the same number of problems in their life as people who claim no faith; the only thing that difference is how they handle those problems. Case in point, my friend Evelyn. Evelyn and her husband Denny gave me one of my first paid jobs ever – working around their farmhouse when I was just 12. She and Denny were a couple of real characters. But in the lunches I shared with them in the middle of my workdays, I got to know them pretty well. One thing I learned was that they were people of VERY deep and abiding faith. Evelyn was in her late sixties when I first worked for them, and over the course of the next ten years I watched her face many problems. First, she faced her husband’s illness and death. Next, she faced the loss of her family farm. And finally she faced the onset of aggressive lung cancer – a cancer that would soon claim her life. As you can see, by most people’s standards Evelyn had a pretty heavy set of burdens to carry. No matter what problem arose, however, Evelyn refused to carry the burdens. She kept turning them over to God. And even on the day of my last visit to her in the hospital, Evelyn had more peace and joy than anyone I had ever met. To use today’s words of the psalmist, God had gotten her out of the bad place. So where are you at in terms of facing the burdens of your life? Are you trying to manage and resolve them yourself, or are taking them off of your own shoulders and placing them on Someone else’s? If you are still trying to manage the unmanageable, I would encourage you to cry out to God in the midst of your own pain and frustration. Even though the external circumstances you face might not change (at least overnight or perhaps not at all), as you cry out you can take peace knowing that you are well on your way to getting out of your bad place no matter what happens. Til next time…
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