Lay Your Burdens Down

 

Three burly fellows on motorcycles pulled up to a highway café where a truck driver, just a little guy, was perched on a lunch-counter stool quietly eating. As the three fellows came into the eatery, they spotted him, grabbed his food away from him and laughed in his face. The truck driver said nothing. He got up, paid for his food, and walked out. One of the three cyclists, unhappy that he hadn’t succeeded in provoking the little guy into a fight, commented to the waitress, “Boy, he sure isn’t much of a man, is he?” The waitress replied, “Well, I guess not.” Then, looking out the front window she added, “I guess he’s not much of a truck driver either. He just ran over three motorcycles in the parking lot.”

One day a visiting farmer leaned on the fence surrounding a farm while he watched an older farmer plowing his field with a mule. After a while, the visitor said, “I don’t like to tell people how to run their business, but you could save yourself a lot of work by saying ‘Gee’ and ‘Haw’ to the mule instead of just tugging on those lines.” The old farmer pulled a big handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his face. Then he said, “Reckon you’re right, but that mule kicked me five years ago and I ain’t spoke to him since.”

Two monks on a pilgrimage came to the ford of a river. There they saw a girl dressed in all her finery, obviously not knowing what to do since the river was high and she did not want to spoil her clothes. Without second thought, one of the monks took the young lady upon his back, carried her across the river and placed her on dry ground. Then the monks continued on their journey. After an hour had passed the other monk began to complain, “Surely it was not right to touch that woman; it is against the commandments for us to have close contact with a woman. How could you go against the rules for the conduct of monks?” The monk who carried the girl across the river continued to walk along silently, but finally remarked, “I set her down by the river over an hour ago. Why are you still carrying her?”

One of the hardest things we must do is to let go of something from the past. Someone does us wrong and seeks forgiveness, but we want to keep carrying the memory. When rationally observed, a grudge is harder on the one holding it than the one it is being held against. Or maybe we made a mistake, and we can’t seem to stop beating ourselves up, despite the fact that we have done what God says to do to be forgiven. We don’t want to keep carrying the memory (and the guilt), but we do. In fact, it seems more difficult to forgive ourselves than to forgive others. “A stone is heavy, and sand is weighty, but a fool’s wrath is heavier than both of them” (Proverbs 27:3).

[Colossians 3:13] The apostle Paul declared, “…bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you must do.” If God through His mercy will forgive you your sins – surely, we can forgive those who have offended us. Paul also said, “Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Paul had to forget his past achievements, as an esteemed Jewish leader. He also had to forget his past failures, which included his persecution of the Lord’s church, and the imprisonment and killing of the Lord’s people. Are you still carrying today what you should have set down a long time ago? Take your burden to Jesus (Matthew 11:28-30).