Letting God Take Our Burdens and Stress

"Come to Me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light." (Matt 11:28-30)

What a killer week! We are going through a quarterly close and we lost a day with the July the 4th holiday weekend. In this case none of our standard deadlines moved while the workload stayed the same. On top of that a slew of work related issues came up which further decreased my free time to do my standard duties by 50%.

My wife had to also deal with my prolonged absences which caused her to have a draining week of caring for my daughter by herself. So for our family it was a tough situation.

The Lord woke me early this morning however because He reminded me that I really need to come apart and be with Him. Jesus Himself set the example for us when He would rise early to be apart from the crowds in quiet while praying to the Father. In truth, these quiet moments are really the best times that I have. All of my days are spent driving, working, meeting, chatting, watching, or even playing. But, how much of that is spending some consistent one to one time with the Lord? Very little.

What the Lord also keyed upon when He woke me was the fact that I have been absorbing a lot of blows during the week. Blows from the sales guys who are trying to book excessive revenues, blows from trying to please my boss, blows from trying to manage my staff, blows from the stress that my wife needs to vent to me, and blows from trying to watch over my child. Yes, the blows come from everywhere and I'm good at absorbing them -- to a point. At some point, the accumulated stress will lead to a breakdown.

That's precisely what happened to me at my previous job. I had tried to take on so much of the stress in my work with my own strength, that I let my faith and relationship to God slip. The consequence was that I had times of stress overload and even volunteered for counseling to talk out some issues.

What I had forgotten however, is that stressful times requires real time with God. Not to specifically do anything, but simply to read a bit of His Word, pray and let Him minister to my soul. At the same time, all the burdens I've absorbed need to be released. No judgement or accusation needs to be retained over what has happened or what was done to me, but if I need to confess my sin, then that is the time to do it. If it wasn't sin that I committed, but maybe sin against me, I need to release it and let God take the burden and judgement instead.

It is so easy to forget sometimes that God is really the one who will judge. It doesn't have to be left to us and so we are free to let go of the things that have happened to us, no matter how harsh. Yes, those who have sinned against us may not get what they deserve here on Earth, but the Lord will be just to judge each sin in the proper way (it can happen here or in eternity).

Lord, please help me to give it all over to You. I'm so grateful that You take the burdens of this life away from us because we don't need to carry all that junk in us all the time. We can learn from our mistakes and have wisdom of the ways and follies of man, but we don't need to always try to get retribution or even with every single thing that happens to us. No, we release it to You to take care of it in its proper way for You see beginning to end. Instead, we just need to follow You. The daily blows become nothing when we have a clear vision of You in front of us at all times. Thank You for being my light and my salvation. In Your healing name of Jesus I pray, Amen.

Getting Over Myself

"He must increase, but I must decrease."
(John 3:30 NASB)

These last four years have been pretty rough for me. Tremendously busy with marriage, having a child, and seeing my career excel to new heights. What that busyness did however, is slowly decline my relationship with the Lord to the point where I was doing a lot, but not really abiding in Him. My attitudes became more arrogant because I had money coming in and we could afford what we wanted within reason and prudence. I didn't have to rely on God all that much.

As a married couple, my wife and I became more cynical and judgmental of the people around us. Never to the point of being jerks in public, but in private we would make lots of comments and jokes. We were clearly arrogant and full of ourselves, but never really realized that it was a symptom that we were no longer fully following the Lord with all our hearts.

We moved to a new city because our prayers led us here and we fully knew that God wanted to change our lives - to draw us near to Him and help us to get back to knowing Him again.

Even in coming here however, I was still full of personal arrogance and I believed that I would get a decent job. Not a prime job by any stretch, but something good. Fortunately for me, it hasn't been that easy. It has been a ride full of disappointments left and right.

I say "fortunately" because my wife and I have realized that there is a sense that God is withholding from us. He has effectively pressed "pause" in our lives, and showed us our deficiencies. The first red flag came with the frustrations and tensions of moving here and having disappointments in the job search. We both were tense and full of resentment toward each other. We maintained good parenting, but inside we were short and would make constant sarcastic comments back and forth.

But, a light has come on in both of us. We've fallen to our knees and acknowledged the hidden sins of arrogance that had grown in us. We were putting ourselves in front of God and worrying about our reputations, materialistic desires and pride.

God gave me a newsflash and said, "I don't care about your reputation with the world. Strip yourself bare of needing the approval of people you know, and simply be my servant in whatever I tell you to do." Because I was holding onto my plans, my pride, my reputation, he couldn't grow me at all. I was a plant that was bearing little to no fruit. Certainly, nothing great for His kingdom was being done by me.

But, my desires have all changed. I need to clean my arrogance out, and focus on that. My past, my dreams are nothing. What I have must be appreciated in full, and there is much to praise Him for (especially the joy of being a parent to my daughter, and a husband to my wife). All the junk that I once valued myself for is out the window because it isn't real or eternal. In fact, I have absolutely nothing to feel superior about (Praise God!). When I finally let go, He can use to me to do His work - He must increase, but I must decrease.