Not Mine to Carry: How an Extravert Can Find Rest

I looked out the windshield, staring at nothing, and sighed.  I turned to my man, driving our diaper-smelling Honda home.

He looked so full of thought and burdens that my heart pained.

I knew my expression probably looked very similar.

As we drove our 6 minute commute (oh suburbia...) we felt the weight of the world on our shoulders.

We had just verbalized a handful of worries, anxieties, concerns, and ideas about various topics and relationships,etc etc.

I exhaled again, just as slow, as if making room for my Comforter to fill me.

A moment passed.

"Matt, do you know why this doesn't feel good?...Because this burden is not ours to carry."

He looked at me with a slow nod of sincere understanding. We knew the Lord was showing us the truth that we needed, the truth that would lead to freedom. The truth we had been asking Him for.

Jesus said, "Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

God has just rocked my role as a mom with this verse.  I word vomited about that here. But on Sunday, God poured out the powerful truth of this verse over all other areas of my life.  And he poured it in abundance.  And I am just now on the verge of experiencing the rest that Jesus says can be mine.

But, often, it's easy to pick up burdens that aren't mine to carry.  I get so stinkin' heavy laden and stuff because I try so hard to please man.  Then I start fearing man, and then I believe that if anyone is upset or hurt by me, than I am a failure. THEN, my yoke of perfectionism weighs all the more. Then my joy is gone, swallowed hole by discouragement.  And discouragement likes to hang out with pity and negativity....you get the picture.

So, here I am, with self-inflicted weariness, and I'm taking off my yoke.

I'm shedding this burden of...fill in the blank.  (Anything that I think will either promote or fulfill me). And now free from the weight, I'm gonna run.  I'm gonna run right to the throne.  And I'm gonna rest.

Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Hebrews 4:16. 

And out of a restful heart, saturated in the grace of God, I'm gonna carry only what God has for me.

And what is that?  Oh jeesh, thank you for asking all 21 followers. :)

It's just grace.  It's the gospel.  The gospel that I must preach to myself, and to my husband, and hear my husband preach to me, every.single.day. Striving for anything else--even good things--will leave me weary, sore, and eventually burnt-out.

So I think that I just typed out an answer of a question I have been laying out before God for a few months now. "How do I avoid people burn-out?" "How do I live so that in 40 years, I will still want to pour my days into God and people?"

I come to Jesus. I take off whatever it is that I think is my responsibility/my role/my image/my duty to carry.  I shed whatever "do" mentality I have picked up, I reject any notion that God will love me more if I just..........whatever.  And I pick up Grace. Rest. and Freedom.

This lesson, like so many, is a quiet one of the heart.  I doubt many will notice huge obvious changes when I stop living as a closet-people-pleaser, and ask Jesus for more grace to please Him.

What makes you weary? When do you feel the weight of the world on your shoulders?  What situation makes you tense up or boil over with emotions you would rather keep hidden?

Could it be that you are carrying a burden that is not yours to carry?  Could it be Jesus' to carry?

Come find rest, come learn from the Jesus that dearly loves you. Live free with me.