Aching shoulders, sleepless nights, consuming thoughts, preoccupied days: we all know the feeling of carrying burdens whether it is concern over someone we love, concern for a circumstance, turmoil in the world or chaos around us.
This past fall my life had a lot of moving parts and many circumstances far beyond my control. I found my internal world unusually angsty as I sought to try and control outcomes, fix problems that weren't mine to fix as well as manage my internal emotional chaos that resulted from feeling parts of my world were unmanageable. This wasn't a tsunami season in life, but more a season where there were a lot of nagging concerns under the surface. Tsunami life circumstances and their effects on our soul are often more easily detected and demand to be dealt with. The multiple little burdens can sometimes go unnoticed, but they still add up. Before we know it we are living life carrying more than we should be carrying. I found myself more angsty than at rest and more preoccupied than present. So often with the things we are carrying, fear comes in and we begin trying to control our world to keep ourselves and ones we love safe. Fear and control go hand in hand and prevent both giving and receiving love.
Whenever anxiety and unrest is near, it is quite probable there is an invitation to us from God waiting in these moments.
In the midst of the swirl, I heard God's gentle whisper to my heart. "Relinquish." For a few days I sat with this word as I increasingly felt God's invitation to open my hands letting go of what I can't control and what is not mine to carry. According to the Brittanica dictionary, Relinquish means "to give up (something); to give (something, such as power, control, or possession) to another person or group." I sat with the things in my hand not sure how to let go. How do I practically let go of things that feel really important? How is that different than sticking my head in the sand and just hoping for the best? How is that living in the reality of life and not just having a rainbow and unicorn mentality? More importantly, if I let go, will these things I am carrying just fall to the ground? Isn't carrying some of these things wisdom? Or is it fear masked as wisdom? Since God was asking for what I was carrying, I suspected the latter.
My fingers were opening, but the burdens were still in my hands and that's when I heard it, "Entrust." Peace flooded my soul. God wasn't asking me to relinquish important burdens so they could simply slip out of my hands and shatter on the ground. He was asking me to take these burdens I was carrying and actively entrust them to Him.
Merriam Webster definition of 'entrust' is "to commit to another with confidence." The active taking of the things we are carrying, opening our hands and relinquishing them to His much more capable and strong ones is an act of trust. There is not a person we care about more than God cares about them. There is not chaos in our small world or the much wider one that we are more capable of calming than God is. There is not a situation in life where our wisdom is greater than God's. There is not a burden our shoulders are more capable of shouldering or our feeble hands are more capable of carrying than God's. Coming to this place is a step towards humility. We are not and cannot be God - and we weren't meant to be.
Relinquishing is not possible for us unless we are also entrusting. Relinquishing is not a haphazard disregard of reality, a head in the sand approach to life or an unwillingness to see things for what they are. Rather, it is a taking of every burden we carry and offering them to hands much stronger than ours. This is prayer.
How different might life be for us if we responded to the open handed invite of God to take all of our burdens and give them to Him because He cares for us?
I Peter 5:6-7 (NIV) Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty had, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because He cares for you.
