Christ Our Burden Bearer

Blessed be the Lord, who daily bears our burden,
The God who is our salvation.  (Psalm 68:19 NASB)

Cast your burden upon the Lord and He will sustain you;
He will never allow the righteous to be shaken. (Psalm 55:22 NASB)

In these two verses, the Psalmist reveals the Lord to us as our burden bearer.  This understanding of Christ as the bearer of our burdens is an essential difference between those who merely have religion and those who are truly in Christ.  What a contrast between the true God and the false gods of this world!  In Isaiah 46, the prophet contrasts those who worship other gods and those who worship the One True God:

Bel has bowed down, Nebo stoops over;
Their images are consigned to the beasts and the cattle.
The things that you carry are burdensome…
… “Listen to Me, O house of Jacob,
And all the remnant of the house of Israel,…
Even to your old age I will be the same,
And even to your graying years I will bear you!
I have done it, and I will carry you;
And I will bear you and I will deliver you.

The contrast could not be greater.  The heathen gods Bel and Nebo had to be carried around everywhere.  Yet the true God Yahweh says “I will carry you” even to your old age! 

Dear Christian friend, are you carrying burdens around that you don’t need to bear?  These verses promise us that He will carry our burdens for us!  When we “cast our burdens on the Lord,” God Himself has made a solemn oath in His word to carry them for us.  Do you believe Him?

This brings to mind a story that I heard years ago which occurred during the days of the horse and wagon.  A wagon driver came upon a man walking down the road carrying a heavy burden on his back.  The driver asked the man if he would like a ride, and the man gratefully accepted and climbed up in the wagon.  However, instead of removing the burden from his back and casting it in the wagon, the man continued to carry it.  The driver looked back at the man and asked, “Aren’t you going to put your burden down?”  The man replied, “Thank you, but no sir.  I wouldn’t ask you to carry me and my burden as well!”

We might laugh at this, but don’t we who are in Christ often carry burdens that we have no need to carry?  If He has carried us by giving His life for us, cannot He bear our burdens also? 

What burdens are you carrying today? Whether your burden is financial stress, marital problems, health issues, the loss of a loved one, or perhaps a hurt feeling from someone who has been unkind to you, will you not cast this burden on Christ now? 

I’m reminded here of the words to the familiar hymn, “What A Friend We Have In Jesus…”

What a Friend we have in Jesus, 
all our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry 
everything to God in prayer!
O what peace we often forfeit, 
O what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry 
everything to God in prayer. 

God has promised to carry our burdens.  Let’s take Him up on His word…today!