Psalms 55:22 Cast thy burden upon the LORD, and he shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.
Over twenty years ago, not long after I came to faith in Messiah Yeshua (Jesus) the Lord began putting it in my heart to create a website where believers could be informed about world, national and Christian news — so that they could more effectively pray. I could not have imagined what Worthy News has become. Back then, I knew nothing about designing websites. I started with a Pentium 1 … a tiny hard drive by today’s standards — just a few gigs. Every few minutes the overload brought it to the point where it would crash. Incredibly frustrating! I finally figured out that in order to fix the problem, I had to dump all the unused programs and unnecessary information. Soon afterward it functioned again, and I learned something…
The responsibilities of life and ministry can become like that overloaded Pentium 1. Take me for example: whose family is growing and that needs, whose online ministry needs regular oversight, traveling all across the world, all in the context of the stress and pressures of life … well, at one point the overload felt a bit like my original computer… on the verge of crashing!
What to do? Continue carrying more burdens than I can bear, processing more information than I need? No. I’ve had to retreat, and I needed to re-evaluate…what is the Lord giving me and what have I taken upon myself? And which burdens am I not casting upon Him?
Allowing ourselves to nearly crash is not spiritual. There will be times when life’s pressures seem unbearable, but we can be prepared for those times if we practice a regular discipline of evaluating our priorities in normal daily life, off-loading unnecessary tasks, and casting the important things onto the Lord, in prayer. If we do so, it may save us from “crashing” in the long run!! Don’t crash … take a long-deserved rest and enjoy your weekend, and rest in His finished work! Shabbat Shalom!
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]This is a story relayed by Corrie Ten Boom, “It was Christmas, 1944. My sister, Betsie, had died. I was in a hospital barracks in Ravensbruck, a Nazi prison camp. Dark it was in my heart, and darkness was around me. There were Christmas trees in the street between the barracks. Dead bodies of prisoners had been thrown under the Christmas trees. I tried to talk to the people around me about Christmas, but they mocked and sneered. At last I kept quiet.
I came across an old legend about three cowboys crossing the desert on horseback by night. Suddenly, as they reached a rocky spot, a voice came from heaven and commanded them: “Friends, pick up some pebbles, put them in your pockets and do not look at them till morning.” The men looked at each other in astonishment and began to do as they were told. The voice went on to promise that if they obeyed, they would be both glad and sad. The perplexed men put a few pebbles each in their pockets and went on their way.
Once upon a time, there was a prince who received a very rare and beautiful bird. He named her Goldie and placed her in a lovely, 14K gold cage. But the poor creature was not impressed by the gold at all. She pleaded for her freedom but the prince loved her much too much to part with her. Still, she continued to beg. In final desperation, she asked that he at least allow her go to her relatives and tell them that, though captive, she was still alive.
The baby that came into the world through the scenario above was named Ishmael. According to Islamic belief, it was Ishmael that was offered as a sacrifice by Abraham, and through him that they became the rightful inheritors of the promises of God. In other words, Ishmael was the seed through which Islam was born. Hmmm.
When Jim Burke became the head of a new products division at Johnson & Johnson, one of his first projects was the development of a children’s chest rub. The product failed miserably, and Burke expected that he would be fired. When he was called in to see the chairman of the board, however, he met a surprising reception. “Are you the one who just cost us all that money?” asked Robert Wood Johnson. “Well I just want to congratulate you. If you are making mistakes, that means you are taking risks, and we won’t grow unless you take risks!” Apparently, Mr. Johnson wasn’t joking! Years later, Johnson & Johnson remains one of the largest multi-national manufacturers of pharmaceutical, diagnostic, therapeutic, surgical, personal hygiene, baby and biotechnology products.
In her book, Let Me Be a Woman, Elizabeth Elliot records the story of a friend who had great difficulty accepting the looks God had given her. While everyone this girl knew had grown beautiful golden hair, hers was black. And while they were all still growing, she had stopped. She grew to be only about four feet ten inches tall.
“A young man enlisted, and was sent to his regiment. The first night he was in the barracks with about fifteen other young men, who passed the time playing cards and gambling. Before retiring, he fell on his knees and prayed, and they began to curse him and jeer at him and throw boots at him. So it went on the next night and the next, and finally the young man went and told the chaplain what had taken place, and asked what he should do. ‘Well,’ said the chaplain, ‘you are not at home now, and the other men have just as much right to the barracks as you have. It makes them mad to hear you pray, and the Lord will hear you just as well if you say your prayers in bed and don’t provoke them.’