Pursuing Truth, Cultivating Virtue, Creating Beauty

Dear Burdened Friend,

I know what you carry is heavy. I know it hurts. I know you feel like you can’t carry it another step. I groan with you, and I encourage you to cast your burdens on our burden-bearing God.

Did you know that God loves to bear your burdens? He says so over and over in his Word.

David knew burdens—being slighted as the youngest brother, chased by a jealous king who wanted to murder him, exiled in a desert for years, the guilt of adultery and murder, betrayed by his usurper son. After a friend betrayed him, David declared, “Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you; he will never allow the righteous to be shaken” (Psalm 55:22). Will you cast your burden on the Lord and let him sustain you?

In contrast to false gods who themselves are a burden (Isaiah 46:1-2), God proclaims to his people, “Listen to me, house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been sustained from the womb, carried along since birth. I will be the same until your old age, and I will bear you up when you turn gray. I have made you, and I will carry you; I will bear and rescue you” (Isaiah 46:3-4). God promises to carry not only your burdens, but you yourself. Will you cast yourself on the Lord and let him carry you?

Peter instructs us, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your cares on him, because he cares about you” (1 Peter 5:6-7). Don’t try to carry this burden in your own strength; you can’t. Humble yourself, and seek God’s help. There is no burden too big for his power or too small for his love. Will you go to him in prayer and cast all your cares on him?

The cross is God’s supreme display of his commitment to his burden-bearing love. On the cross, the God-man took our heaviest, most despicable burden on himself: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree; so that, having died to sins, we might live for righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24; also see Isaiah 53). Even your sin—the thing God hates most—and even the worst suffering and death, couldn’t prevent God from bearing your burden. Will you look to the cross and trust in his sin-removing, burden-bearing love?

God commands us to “carry one another’s burdens; in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2). I know your burden tempts you to isolate yourself, but don’t. “Wouldn’t it be selfish to burden others?” you ask. No. God has beautifully designed his burden-bearing ministry to involve his people. The Church is Christ’s body, and his hands and feet on earth are a primary way he bears our burdens. As followers of a burden-bearing Savior, we become burden-bearers, too. When we bear burdens like Jesus, we share in Jesus’ own love-fueled joy. Don’t withhold this blessing from others. Will you share your burden and let Jesus bear it through his body on earth?

God knows about your burdens better than anyone. He cares more than anyone. He can help better than anyone. Will you bring your burdens to our burden-bearing God?

Your friend in Christ,

Zack