Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you;
he will never permit the righteous to be moved. -David, Psalm 55:22

I have an invisible backpack. Inside of it are all of my burdens and problems. No matter how crowded it is, there’s always room for more. Sometimes a burden comes out, but more often than not, burdens are going in. Just about every day I sling the pack over my shoulders and tote it around, no matter how heavy it is. Yeah, I get tired but I feel obligated to carry it, so I trudge on.

Oh, you too?

I wonder, what if we weren’t obligated to carry these invisible backpacks? What if we had permission to offload them somehow? What if someone else was willing and capable of carrying them for us?

You know where I’m going with this.

I came  across a verse in the psalms recently that reminded me of something I had read many times over in the New Testament, in the book of I Peter. It occurred to me that the verses sounded a lot alike, which made me wonder if there was some kind of a connection. See what you think:

Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you;
he will never permit the righteous to be moved. -David, Psalm 55:22

Casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you. -Peter, I Peter 5:7

See the similarities? I did a little digging and found that Bible commentators pretty much agree that Peter was quoting David, or at least paraphrasing him. That means Peter, an original disciple of Jesus, was reaching way back to the psalms of David for insight on how to handle personal problems.

Though they were separated by more than a thousand years, these two giants of the faith (David and Peter) agree on this: It is a good idea to give your burdens to the Lord, because He can manage them better than you can.

This is fairly strong evidence that we are not obligated to carry those invisible backpacks with all our problems after all. There is Someone who is willing and able to carry those things for us. Crazy as it may sound, we have a legitimate invitation to continuously throw our burdens on the Lord Himself.

To be clear, this does not mean that we have no responsibility to make choices and deal with life issues. What is does mean is that we are not duty-bound to live underneath the weight of mental and emotional distress that often goes with those issues.

Just as Jesus was willing to die on the Cross as a substitute for us, so He is also willing to carry our daily burdens for us to spare us the trouble. He’s just like that.

But how does it work? Practically speaking, how do we shift the weight of our concerns to His shoulders? Prayer is a good starting point. Taking a few minutes to explicitly express to God the things that are heavy on your heart and mind is a great way to transfer the burden from your back to His. It might sound something like this,

“Dear God, you know that I am struggling with _________ today. I believe that You are much more capable of handling this situation than I am, so please help me to release it into Your care. I will probably take it back from you again and try to carry it on my own. When I do, please remind me that You are willing to carry it for me. In Jesus’ Name, Amen”

It’s a new day with God. Run with it.

“What is does mean is that we are not duty-bound to live underneath the weight of mental and emotional distress that often goes with those issues.”