PART II
I hope you’ll remember this phrase: “If It’s Not Light, It’s Not Right!” because it can remind you of the wonderful truth that Jesus himself gave us:
Matthew. 11:28-29: Jesus said, 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.
His burden is light and he invites us to exchange our heavy burdens for his light one. If the burden you are carrying is not light, it is not right!
The burdens we tend to carry around with us fall into three broad categories: guilt and cares from the past, worries and concerns about the present, and fear of the future. Past, present and future.
Think about your burdens. How many of them are a part of your past? Are you carrying things around that should be behind you? Let me read you a couple of verses in the Bible:
Philippians 3:13-14: But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
Isaiah 43:18-19: Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.
One reason many of us are carrying heavy burdens is because we haven’t yet committed the past to the Lord. You may have endured great pains in your past, but if you know Jesus as your Savior, he has the power to take that burden from your past and exchange it for his peace. God doesn’t intend for us to drag around those burdens from our past.
Guilt should not be a part of our lives. If we’ve been forgiven and made restoration as much as possible, then we need to forget what is behind and not allow our enemy to plague us with guilt. If we haven’t dealt with the cause of that guilt, then we need to do that. But carrying guilt around from the past is a burden too heavy for any of us.
Is some of your burden because of fear of the future, because you don’t know what the future holds? Are you afraid it won’t be what you want it to be? Paul wrote to the Romans “For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship.” Jesus has come to set us free from that spirit of fear. John wrote in his first epistle that God is love, and there is no fear in love, because perfect love drives out fear. The one who lives in a spirit of fear, John says, is not made perfect in love.
Our enemy will come at us with every other kind of fear he can dredge up. When you find yourself fearful, a red flag should immediately go up in your mind which says, “Wait a minute, something’s wrong here because I have not been given a spirit of fear by God. Therefore, I know where this fear is coming from.”
Remember this wonderful verse of hope:
Jeremiah 29:11: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
So many Christians are handicapped by their fears of what the future holds. I think of a single young woman I know who faces every day with fear and depression, because she’s not sure she’ll ever be married. That fear consumes her. You know, I can remember being consumed with that fear, too, but I now know that we don’t have to live with it, if we’re willing to let go of it.
Whether it’s your fear of being single, or not getting the job you want or the grade average you desire—whatever your personal fears are of the future, that fear is an indication that you are not trusting God in that area. You can be rid of that depressing, life-sapping fear of the future if you’ll just determine by God’s grace to drop that burden at Jesus’ feet and exchange it for his light burden. You must make the move to exchange; that’s up to you. He will supply the power and will execute the exchange, once he sees that you’re willing to let go of those fears.
It is when we live in regret and bitterness from yesterday, or fear and dread of tomorrow, that we take burdens never intended for us.
Yesterday with all its cares and frets, all its pains and aches, all its faults, mistakes and blunders, has passed forever beyond our recall. We cannot undo an act that we wrought; nor unsay a word we said. Save for the beautiful memories—sweet and tender—that linger appropriately, we have nothing to do with yesterday. It was ours. It is now God’s!
And Tomorrow with all its possible adversities, its potential perils, its unknown paths and events, is as far beyond our mastery as Yesterday. It is a day of God’s. It will be mine, but it is not yet.
We have but one day to work with—Today. Any of us can carry the burdens of just one day! Dear friends, it is when we willfully add the burdens of Yesterday and Tomorrow that we break down. It isn’t the experience of Today that drives us mad. It is the remorse for something that happened Yesterday; the dread of what Tomorrow may bring. Yesterday and Tomorrow are God’s. Leave them with him!
Jesus clearly told us to live in the present:
Matthew 6:34: Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
If we rid ourselves of yesterday’s regrets and tomorrow’s fears, how do we deal with today? Here are two helpful verses:
1 Peter 5:7: Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.
Philippians 4:6: Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
Remember, Jesus has told us explicitly to come to him and exchange our heavy burdens for his light and easy one. He never intended for us to carry these heavy burdens from the past, present or future. And how do you do that? You do it by faith, by a choice to relinquish, by prayer, but trusting in the God who has promised to carry our burdens for us.
I want to share a wonderful principle with you that my friend, Jill Briscoe gave me. At a point when she was trying to carry a very heavy personal burden, God showed her what she was to do. And he spoke to her through the story of the children of Israel bringing down the walls of Jericho.
In Joshua 6 we read this remarkable story where the Lord said to Joshua, “See I have delivered Jericho into your hands. . . March around the city once with all the armed men. Do this for six days. . . On the seventh day, march around the city seven times. . When you hear them sound a long blast on the trumpets, have all the people give a loud shout; then the wall of the city will collapse and the people will go up, every man straight in.
“So Joshua had the ark of the Lord carried around the city, circling it once. Then the people returned to camp and spent the night there.”
Here was a problem facing God’s people, and it looked like a total impossibility. How would this group of Israelites destroy the walls of Jericho and conquer the land God had promised them? Well, God gave them the directions: March around the walls with the ark of the Lord once each day, then go back to the camp and do what you have to do that day.
Here’s the principle for each of us: When you’ve got a burden that is heavy for you to carry and your heart is breaking and you don’t know what to do, you need to march around your burden, your problem, your walls of Jericho, once each day with the Ark of the Lord—with the Word of God. Every morning march around that problem and tell God everything that’s on your heart. Take the Word of God and find promises and comfort for you for the day, and mentally march around that problem with the Word that God has given you.
Then, once you’ve marched around it once, go out to do whatever it is that you must do for the day, and let that burden go. When it crops up in your mind, say, “No, sorry, but I marched around you once this morning and that’s all for the day. One time per day, and I’ve left it with the Lord. It’s his problem for the rest of the day.”
Remember, Jesus never intended for us to carry heavy burdens. And when you try to carry them all day long, you can’t think of anything else, you can’t get anything else done, you’re no good to anyone else, and then that burden you’re carrying starts to have drastic effects in other areas of your life, which eventually increases the burden you are carrying. It’s a lose/lose situation. But if you will follow this Jericho principle and turn the heavy burden over to the Lord once a day, then release it to him for the rest of the day, you’ll discover freedom from that impossible burden you’ve been trying to carry.
Now, your enemy is going to try to make you feel guilty for not carrying the burden all day long. Be prepared to stand up to the enemy and resist his attempts to dump that burden back on you all through the day. Each time you start to pick up that heavy burden again, stop and pray and once again remind yourself that you were never intended to carry heavy burdens.
Remember this, “If it’s not light, it’s not right!” That’s how you know whether you’re carrying the right burden or not. Jesus’ burden is light. You can handle it. Your burdens are heavy and unmanageable. Learn to let go of those heavy burdens. God never intended that you should carry them. And remember, it is done by faith, not by feelings. I find that often I must obey Jesus in spite of my feelings, when my feelings are actually taking me in another direction. But I can choose to obey by faith and then eventually the feelings will catch up—or not! But I still need to obey by faith and not by feelings.