My three youngest children attend a Parents’ Day Out Program twice a week. Recently, when I took them to school, I overheard the director saying she would have to find someone to teach the two-year-olds class that day. It turned out that the regular teacher had a scheduled day off. The director was able to get a substitute, but shortly before I got to the school, the substitute’s son threw up in his class, so she had to leave and take him home. This left the two-year-olds class without a teacher.
I told the director I would be glad to teach the class that day. She has known our family through the school for three years, so she accepted. I went home, packed a backpack full of Ellie’s homeschool materials, which I planned to go over with her during the children’s naptime, and took Ellie with me back to the school.
I parked the van, and we got out. I was thinking about what a beautiful day it was when Ellie asked me if I would carry her backpack. “It’s heavy,” she said.
“Sure,” I said, and swung it up over one shoulder. Ellie was right; it was heavy with all the things I had packed. I thought about how she would be glad that I was carrying it for her, and how she had known it would be no trouble for me.
I was struck then with how perfect a spiritual analogy the situation was.
God, our Father, is far more able to carry our burdens than I am to carry Ellie’s backpack. Yet too often, we struggle along, trying to shoulder our load by ourselves, only calling out to God when we are exhausted.
Why? I can think of two primary reasons. Maybe you can think of more.
The first reason is that somehow, we’ve gotten the idea that we should be able to handle things ourselves. Granted, there are times God expects us to take action rather than sit around, hoping the situation will change. But He is well aware of how much or how little strength we have. He knows what’s too heavy for us, and He wouldn’t expect us to bear our own burdens any more than I would have expected Ellie to lug a backpack that was too heavy for her into the school.
The second reason is that we don’t want to admit we need help. Maybe the idea of needing help is so threatening to our sense of self that we’re in denial, not even realizing that we’re sinking. Or maybe we know we’re sinking, but we’d rather go under than admit we can’t tread water.
Whichever your reason, it’s nothing but pride. Our pride tells us we can be sufficient on our own, if we try hard enough. But why is self-sufficiency even a desirable goal, anyway? For one thing, it’s completely impossible to attain. We are not self-sufficient apart from our Father, and we never will be. If we didn’t need God, we would be God, and we most certainly are not. We can do nothing apart from God, and it’s time we put our pride to death and acknowledge the fact.
Where are you struggling today? Where do you need God’s help, whether you want to admit it or not?
Let your pride go. Throw it away from you and beg the Father’s forgiveness, confessing His sufficiency and your insufficiency, asking Him to shoulder the burden for you.
Then, watch as He lifts it up, swinging it onto His shoulder as if it were weightless (which, to Him, it is). Let Him carry it for you. It’s what He longs to do. It’s what you long for Him to do. Will you let Him?
1 Peter 5:7—Cast all your anxieties on him, because He cares for you.