Cast Your Burden on the LORD

You may be carrying something heavy by yourself. Handing it over would mean admitting that you cannot manage it, and that feels like a price you would rather not pay.

This verse comes from a psalm about betrayal, and David is specific about who hurt him: "For it was not an enemy that reproached me; then I could have borne it." He goes on: "But it was thou, a man mine equal, my guide, and mine acquaintance. We took sweet counsel together, and walked unto the house of God in company." So the man who wrote the line about casting your burden was a man whose burden was a friend.

The Hebrew word for "burden" here comes from the verb "to give," so it means something closer to what has been given to you: your share, the thing that fell to you without your choosing it. That fits most of what really weighs on us, like a hard diagnosis for someone you love, a bill that is due, or a family situation you never chose. Then comes the word "sustain." It means to hold someone up and to keep supplying what they need. It is the same verb used when Joseph fed his whole family through the years of famine. God does not promise that the weight will disappear. He promises to hold you up under it, and He never gets tired.

So tell Him today, in the car or at the kitchen sink, in one plain sentence: "Lord, this one is mine, and I cannot hold it."

Then go and do the next thing on your list, and do not be surprised if you still feel the weight at noon. Feeling a weight is different from being crushed by it, and the psalm only ever rules out the second: "he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved." The One who holds you up will not let you fall.

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 356 is As I Live (Ezekiel 33:11).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna