An Exchange of Burdens / Responsibilities

From “My Utmost for His Highest”…

“Cast thy burden upon the Lord. PSALM 55:22
We must distinguish between the burden-bearing that is right and the burden-bearing that is wrong. We ought never to bear the burden of sin or of doubt, but there are burdens placed on us by God which He does not intend to lift off, He wants us to roll them back on Him. ‘Cast what He hath given thee upon the Lord’ (rv mg).”

Oswald Chambers spoke of distinguishing between two different kinds of burden-bearing, and a recurring theme lately in our church has been that of an exchange of responsibilities. These are not dissimilar.

The burden we should never bear, according to Chambers, is that of sin or doubt. He is right. That burden, that responsibility, is the kind we cannot bear, because the end of it is judgment and the fiery indignation of the Lord. What we exchange that unbearable responsibility for is the sobering and divine responsibility for bearing the Light. First we carried our sins, and now we carry His righteousness, His light. First we were “Heavy laden”, and now we have taken His yoke upon us (Matthew 11.28-30), a far better arrangement, to be sure, as once we bore an impossible burden alone, and now a much better and lighter burden, and with Him as our yoke-fellow.

Few people ever get to live a responsibility-free life (and none should wish to, for such a life is void of meaning, utterly wasted, and always, eventually, deeply unhappy). And to be Christian does not exempt us from responsibility either. It simply changes our responsibility from something terrible to something at once noble, meaningful, and even divine.