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

I have been thinking a lot about what it means to cast one’s burden on the Lord. It seems like this should be easy but, for me, it’s not. Sure, I pray about things and mentally give them to Him but I still feel the weight way too often. It’s as if I want God to change a situation and I ask Him to do so but, until He does, I feel like it’s up to me to help achieve that change. I expect this is one of the things that God will be working with me on in 2018.

The hardest situations to apply this in is where it concerns others that I love. I hate watching them make bad decisions. Everything in me desires to help them see a better way. When they aren’t open, I take it personally: What is it that they see in me that causes them to reject God’s ways? If I were only more eloquent, maybe they would listen. The fact is that God is the only one that can change a heart. I can give suggestions, show them Scriptures that will help, etc. but that is where my responsibility ends.

I expect that I am not the only one who has a hard time leaving others in God’s hands. From now through the end of the year, I will be spending more time in prayer on a variety of issues. I will pray for those I know who need God and yet are rejecting Him. I will intercede for those who need God’s healing touch. I will ask God to draw me closer to Him so that I can be a brighter light in a dark world. And I will be striving to leave my burdens, my friends, my family at His feet. Won’t you join me?