A short while later, something else hard happens.
Then that experience is followed with more heavy things.
And it just
feels like too much.
Heavy thing after heavy thing after heavy thing, with barely any time to breathe in between.
Have you ever felt that way? Like it's too much? I have... I do.
"Battle weary" is how I described it to someone recently. When you are weary to the depths.
God clearly whispered to my heart four years ago to get ready, to get my Armor on, and be watchful.
God is good to us like that. He warns us. He prepares us. But He wants us to choose to use what He's prepared.
There have been times in the years since that warning that I have been strong and fought well. There have been times when I have been weak and tired. There have been times when I was victorious, and there have been times when I was distracted and got wounded.
I've been on the battlefield for awhile, under heavy and seemingly constant attacks from the enemy. And today, already weak and limping, this one more thing, the news from this phone call, was too much.
Too much.
On this "too much" day a few months ago I sat on the side of the road in my car and cried out to God with tears pouring, and told him brokenly, angrily, out loud, "God, this feels like too much. It's too much. It's too heavy. I can't take any more. It's too much."
With heartbreaking honesty, I told him it made me mad. I asked him why? Why now? Why more?
I pounded the steering wheel and screamed and railed at him...
I did.
And suddenly I was reminded of someone else who did that. Someone who probably felt like it was too much. A guy who lost pretty much everything in just one day. A guy named Job who reached a point and had a pity party much like I was, but also was a guy who ultimately said of God, "Even if he slay me, I will still trust him."
I sat in that thought for many moments while the tear streaks dried on my face. Could I step into that kind of trust? Did I want to? I felt like I had wasted my time for years trying to be good, trying to follow the rules and do the right things, and live the right way, and I thought life would be easier then. I thought when you do the right things, the wrong things don't happen.
This hard stuff didn't feel fair.
Job probably thought it wasn't fair either. The Bible says he was an "upright" person, which means he was honorable...he did what was right. God knew Job would be okay. He even knew Job would end up better than he was before. He knows the same about us, that He has good plans for us. Still that thought doesn't necessarily make the hard things hurt less. But it does still ask the question...Do I want to trust God like that? Can I?
I really wanted to crawl into a hole and shut the world out, shut the problems out, shut out the responsibilities and just everything. I wanted quiet for my soul. But then I realized what I really wanted, craved, was to fall into the security of safe arms that would hold me with strength and love and never let me down. In my mind's eye, I pictured God's open arms beckoning me, asking me, inviting me...
Did I trust Him? Even when things felt like too much and I didn't understand?
I closed my eyes and leaned slowly over to lie down on the seat. I pictured my head in Jesus' lap and his arms holding me. I felt a soft whisper to my weary soul of, It IS too much for you. But it's not too much for ME. Stop trying to do it on your own. It's mine. You're mine. You CAN'T do it. But I can."
I lie there for long moments. The sadness didn't go away. But the crushing weight of it did.
I admitted to myself that it's moments like this when I really learn what my faith is made of. I thought back to all the ways over my lifetime that God has proven to me that I definitely can trust Him with all of my "too-much" moments. It's never too much for Him. And it's only too much for us when we try to carry it, or fix it, without Him.
He begs us to come lay in His arms. Matthew 11:30 promises us that His yoke is easy and his burden is light because he bears the brunt of it on himself.
When we feel like it's too much, it's because it is. It's not ours to carry.
After all...Jesus carried the weight of the sin of the world. My little burden alone is not hard at all for Him!
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