Prayer is a wonderful gift. It is God’s grace that we can bring our cares and worries to him. Through prayer, we commune with a personal God who desires to bear our burdens. In Matthew 11:28-30, we learn that God desires us to take on his yoke, “for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Like many of you, my prayer life has its ups and downs. In my life, I’ve been in many situations and traversed trails that have pushed me to prayer. While my response to hardship was right to go to God in prayer, at some point I realized that I hadn’t been laying my burdens at the feet of Christ. My journaled prayers may say, “Your will be done,” but my heart wasn’t always on the same page. In my heart, I didn’t trust God to carry my burdens and care for me in them.
I would go to God in prayer and tell him all my troubles. Then instead of picking up his yoke and letting him carry mine, I would pick up my burden and place it once again on my back. I would do this continually. I would leave my prayer time with God more frustrated than before, not understanding why my burdens continued to feel heavy.
While I thought I had been casting my cares on the Lord, I wasn’t. Sinfully, in my heart, I wanted to carry my burdens. I believed that if I let God take them he would forget he had them. He carries so many burdens, surely he would forget about mine. So I would diligently bring my burdens before God, ask him for help, clarity, and wisdom, and then place them on my back to carry again.
I have a God who wants to carry my burdens, who knows what I need and how to care for me, but I was too scared to let him. My sinful nature stopped me from fully believing that God would remember the burdens I bring to him. However, once God revealed to me the lies I believed about his character, I was able to practice trusting him fully, bringing my burdens to him and leaving them there for him to carry.
What does letting Christ carry your burdens look like? This is something that looks different in each of our lives, but the heart of it all is coming to God in humble submission. In my life, that has looked like taking time to turn my attention away from what burdens me. I tend not to trust that God is working when I am not actively reminding him of what burdens me. So for me, an act of humble submission is handing it off to God and trusting that he will work. Turning my attention to God, his attributes, and what he has done in my life. Reminding myself of the trustworthiness, goodness, and wisdom of God. Finding truths in the Bible of God’s character and his heart towards his people. Sometimes that means taking a break from praying about it or praying a simple prayer: “Lord, you know my heart; help me to trust you.” Whatever the action you feel God calling you to, follow the Spirit’s prompting and be obedient to listen to God.
Now, I am not advising you against praying persistently! In Luke, the parable of the persistent widow shows us the power and purpose of persistent prayers. Rather, I am encouraging you to take stock of your heart. Are you truly letting Christ carry your burdens, or are you picking them back up? Sisters, don’t prevent yourselves from experiencing the freedom that comes from having a God who carries your burdens.
