Chuck It

"Cast your burden on the Lord — releasing the weight of it — and He will sustain you; He will never allow the consistently righteous to be moved — made to slip, fall, or fail." — Psalm 55:22 Amplified

Several Bible translations urge us to "give" our burdens to the Lord. And that's good. But "cast" is a better word, because this is what comes to mind:

We fling it out there in the deep unknown, trusting that because He's grabbed it many times before, He'll do it at least one more time. Over and over, He proves Himself faithful and good, whether we barely have the strength to fling it or are stirred with a holy resolve and jet-fueled perseverance to cast it with triumphant faith.

The problem with this image, of course, is that the one casting always seems to be taking it back. Over and over again.

Yep, far too often, we're that guy. Or, in the words of Mrs. Cowman's Streams in the Desert:

"Genuine faith puts its letter in the mailbox and lets go. Distrust, however, holds on to a corner of the envelope and then wonders why the answer never arrives."

 

An even better image of "cast," then, might be this one:

Because the psalmist's definition of "cast" thinks outside the box. It implies not just give or hand over the burden, or even cast it in a reel-it-back-in fishing sort of way, but to chuck it entirely onto Him.

O God, You know how much we like the feel of that fishing rod with its grip and control, but if this is what Your Word says, help us to become this guy instead. Thank You that we never wear You out with our desperate pleas and sighs. And for that next weight du jour, help us to hold on for dear life only to the proof of Your faithfulness and goodness and Love to us over and over again, and then to chuck the weight of what's weighing us down all onto You — resting in the fact that, in spite of ourselves, Father knows best. Far less corner-of-the-envelope living...more no-strings-attached trust.

"This is God in His holy place
This is God clothed in love and strength...
Sing out, lift your voice and cry out
Awesome is our strong God, mighty is our God!" 

("Strong God"-Jon Egan, Jason Ingram, Meredith Andrews)

When Those Guys is Us Guys

“No one calls on Your Name or strives to lay hold of You.”—Isaiah 64:7

Biblical zingers like this aren't always directed at the unrepentant, rebels, Pharisees and Sadducees, and people-who-smoke-and-chew. In fact, just about every time we're thinking, "yeah,those guys," God is prone to reply, “Hmmm. Anything hit close to home?”

Unrepentant, maybe not, but OK yes, we sure do like hanging out with its cousin Stubborn. And we can hardly help ourselves. It’s an attraction that’s been engrained deep within from birth (thank you, Eden), with roots deeper still simply by being an American, and double-knotted if you are a New Englander. A nicer word for it, or so we'd like to think, is “self-sufficiency”—which certainly has its merits for many things in life.

But not in the Kingdom of God, where roots of “one another,” and "My grace is sufficient for you," and “trust in the Lord” are deeper still and endless. And beautiful and rich.

And yet how often do we claim to walk with the One who does “awesome things that we did not expect” (verse 3), over and over again—and yet more often than we’d like to admit, we don’t lay hold of all that?  Or of Him? At least not right away. Because when things aren't working out the way we'd like, and "nothing is happening!," and God seems to be nowhere in sight, it's surprising how often all of that will be rooted in trying to be self-sufficient in serving, in attitude, and in pursuing the seemingly noble things of fixing stuff, and people, and patterns, and bad habits. On our own.

Condemnation? Nope. Much-needed course correction? Yup. Us guys. And every five minutes, actually.

Lord, thank You that Your Words aren't merely wonderful words of life, but that they also lovingly and surgically pierce the heart for our good. And that for every passage that seems to be directed at ‘those guys,’ healing, strength, wisdom, and perseverance awaits any one of Your kids who would swallow hard and confront the course correction that might be staring us right in the face—the one whose anthem is...

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it; prone to leave the One I love. Here’s my heart, Lord, take and seal it—

seal it for Thy courts above…

...so that we would increasingly live and strive to lay hold of You (in spite of ourselves) at the dawn of each new day.

Even So, 'But Go!'...

“He is risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid Him. But go, tell His disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee.’ There you will see Him, just as He told you.”—Mark 16:6-7

This morning, and the 51 other Resurrection Days to come, we who consider ourselves Christ-ones are reawakened to the mind-boggling reality of the greatest victory…ever. There has never been a more joyous triumph—because unlike even the most amazing and exhilarating sporting events or personal accomplishments, the eternal joy of the reality of the Resurrection never fades or becomes diminished with time or fleeting memory. Death and hopelessness met Love, and were destroyed once and for all. And what could possibly be better news than that?

The “He is risen!” of the angel shouts that not only was the cross not the end of the story, but that the One who is very much alive is God Himself who was, and is, and is to come. Just as He said it would be, over and over and over again. He is still the One who became flesh and “moved into the neighborhood.” He is still God with us, and yet so much more—now Christ in us, the hope of His glory before a world in need of more hope than ever.

Eternal reality is one thing. Living it out is another. And on those days (sometimes weeks) when the cares and stresses of life are compounded by an accelerating unraveling in every corner of the world, it’s good to remember that God has great patience, encouragement, and a relentless Resurrection-living call on our lives, no matter how imperfect and weak our faith may be at times.

In fact, according to the Gospel of Mark, here’s the kind of week the very first ones who followed Christ in person had during His last days physically on earth:

 

They fell asleep when they should have been alert

They deserted Him when they said they wouldn’t

They ran home where it was safer

They followed at a distance hoping no one would notice

They caved in to public opinion

And even on this day at the empty tomb, they doubted, were filled with confusion

And ran some more

And some 2000+ years later, we have all, at one time or another, sung together: “Owned the t-shirt factory!”

All the more reason why Resurrection morning is a reminder to “but go….” and join the weak-of-faith who’ve gone before us at Galilee, to worship with renewed awe, wonder, and joy even if hounded by the tiniest of doubts and fears, and to be reminded of our purpose in this lifetime—and especially that the strength for the journey is His anyway:

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations….and surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20)

"The point of your life is to point to Him.

Whatever you are doing, God wants to be glorified, because this whole thing is His."—Francis Chan