Heavy Burdens and Hard Yokes

I lay there wide awake for two hours in the early morning feeling so exhausted mulling over all of the thoughts in my head. There is this burden that I can’t seem to shake and this fear that creeps in through so many ways. This isn’t the first night but instead just one night in a long series of wide-awake struggling with the Lord. It isn’t a struggle of anger nor one of disappointment in who He is, because in those moments I know how good He is and how gracious He is. This is a struggle between my flesh and His Spirit. It’s a million questions bottled into one huge “is this all worth it?” moment.

Of course I know He is worth all the sleepless nights, battles with culture, struggles with sin and my own flesh. But as I look ahead and look behind I feel overcome with anxiety and fear. The past year was one of stretching, pruning, growing, and learning. Yes, I had fun and laughed a lot. But I also walked through some of the most terrifying and dark moments of my life. I’m not here to compare my life with anyone else’s or say that my life experience is harder than another’s I’m simply here to be honest with what is swirling around in my heart. I think God desires honesty amongst His saints. When our vulnerability and reality collide with His goodness and immeasurable grace the world glimpses His glory amidst our mess.

So what do we do when the honest reality seems to completely bury his goodness? What is our response when the burden he promised would be light seems to weigh heavier than we could imagine? Why does this easy yoke seem to be choking the life out of me? Where is this rest? (Matthew 11:28-30)

It’s in those moments that we lean in even deeper to the cross He has asked each of us to carry. We look at the burden and declare that His grace is enough to carry it all. We relinquish the expectation that we’ve put on ourselves to figure out why this season is hard and remember the desert is a place that even He walked through. We open His word and let it push back the darkness in our heart and confusion in our minds. We echo the Psalmist as he says “Trouble and anguish have found me out, but your commandments are my delight.” (Psalm 119:143, emphasis added.)

So I choose, in those moments of fear and confusion, to not make this desert experience longer by complaining or questioning; instead, I recognize His pruning as a sign that He has work to do within me so that I can display His love better. I share with Him in suffering because He is sharing with me the glory of His father. And I cling to His love-everlasting which has rescued me time after time.