burdens

I was watching an old Western movie the other day, which tells you that my day was not very exciting. The story involved a family of cowboys making the long trek over the mountains to get to their new homestead. As was often the case in those days, the family made the decision to leave their current home and travel to unknown places in search for a better life. I am not sure I would have the courage to make that leap of faith but it was always admirable to watch others make those journeys.

If you think about it, the journey was pretty remarkable. Just traveling by horseback for that many miles would be tough enough. The danger of climbing rocks and cliffs along with the possibilities of running into predators such as bears and cougars. Not to mention, the constant search for food and water along the way. Not fun by any stretch of the imagination.

One thing that caught my eye as I was watching this movie was that everything this family owned was basically packed on the backs of pack mules meandering down and around those winding trails. The mules carried those tremendous weights and burdens of the family’s belongings through the entire journey. Finally, at the end of each day, the packages and boxes were lifted off the backs of the mules so that they could rest for the night. It had not really hit me before watching this movie that the burdens of those mules could only be lifted by someone else.

What a wonderful analogy of our own life’s burdens and our relationship with Christ. How many times do we go through life carrying weight after weight and burden after burden. Unfortunately, we carry those burdens until we seemingly collapse and never realize that it is Christ who can remove those burdens from our life.

The next time you are feeling overwhelmed and over-burdened, just ask yourself: Are you carrying too much of a burden yourself? Try letting Christ lighten your load and your path will be much easier.

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I was driving down the road last week on my way to work in terrible Atlanta traffic. I usually don’t pay much attention to the cars and trucks around me but, on this particular day, there was a particular vehicle that caught my eye. The vehicle I noticed was a normal sized pick-up truck towing an open trailer. The truck was visibly in good shape, fairly new, with good tires and appeared to be well maintained. The truck and trailer captured my attention because the trailer was so full of furniture and materials that the truck could barely pull it and was only traveling around 30 MPH or so. There were at least two couches I could see; 3 refrigerators; multiple dressers; boxes stacked on boxes, and lots more I couldn’t even identify. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why this person wouldn’t make multiple trips and haul less on each trip, rather than trying to haul everything in one trip. It was obviously unsafe and my only thought was that either the truck or the trailer was going to wreck or cause a wreck at any moment. I decided to pass the truck and trailer and continue on my way towards work.

I really didn’t think about it much anymore that day; however, on my way home that afternoon, I noticed the same trailer parked on the opposite side of the road. It appeared that the wheel had come off the trailer or perhaps there was an axle problem as the trailer was learning toward one side. A lot of the furniture that I noticed on the trailer that morning was no longer there; I could only assume it was hauled separately or stolen. There were many of the same boxes and smaller items still sitting in the trailer. It was fairly obvious that the truck originally pulling the over-loaded trailer decided to disconnect the trailer and continue on without it. Perhaps this was out of necessity but, nonetheless, I am quite sure the truck was able to continue on its journey at a much safer pace.

As Christians, we all tend to live our lives very similar to the truck and trailer I observed that day. We live our lives carrying around burdens from our past that simply overload our lives. We do everything we can to improve our everyday life and live as God would have us to live then, inexplicably, we “hook-up” to our trailer of life burdens that we just continue to carry around. Maybe we feel like we can’t carry on without taking these burdens with us. Maybe we think these past burdens somehow contribute to the present. Somehow, we know that isn’t the case; yet, we continue to carry them anyway.

I want to be clear that I am not referring to positive memories of loved ones or positive life memories that have shaped our lives. What I am referring to are those negative, unnecessary events that God has long forgiven us of or forgotten but we can’t seem to accept that forgiveness. Let’s spend a little time looking through a typical “trailer” that we tend to hitch up and carry around each day. A typical trailer might be packed with: Grudges against someone for something they said to you many years ago; guilt about a poor decision that you wish you could have changed; something you said to someone that you wish you hadn’t said; bitterness about how life has “treated” you; hurt towards someone that mistreated you; and on and on.

Whatever events in your past are carried around in your “trailer,” I realize the hurt and the pain is real. No one can minimize or take that away from that.. Only our Heavenly Father can heal you from those hurts and help you to forgive those that need forgiving and move on with your life. If you have prayed those hurts and burdens to God, HE has already forgiven you; there is no need to continue carrying those with you. Disconnect your trailer and free yourself from the burdens of your past.

Lift Your Burdens

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When We are Packed to the Hilt

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