Article June 15, 1987 Issue

Dropping burdens

Job pressures, fear of disease, family challenges, can often weigh us down. But can we put aside these weights without shirking our responsibilities?

Nelle O. Sprowls

If you have ever carried a heavy load for a long time, perhaps uphill, you know what a welcome relief it is to put the burden down. But what would be your response if you found that the load did not belong to you after all or even that it was dangerous and that you had been duped into thinking it was yours to carry? In a way this is the case with the burdens we may be carrying today, burdens such as fear, outworn traditions and customs, self-condemnation, sickness. We are carrying loads that are not ours, and we can put them off.

Through a false sense of ourselves, burdens can be dumped into our hands without our knowing it. We pick up the view that man is mainly a material being left to the resources of a limited, human mind. If God is considered at all, He is generally thought to be far removed from man. The fear of sickness is one of the heaviest burdens this view thrusts upon mankind. But Christ Jesus said to his followers in all ages: "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."^{Matt. 11:28–30.} Jesus lifted the burden of fear and healed disease. Even those who had been shackled for many years were liberated instantly.

Healing sickness and sin, Jesus taught and lived the Christ, the true idea of man's sonship with God. He showed us how to recognize our true being as the beloved of God, inseparable from Him. Jesus proved that man is not a biological machine, the product of material heredity and circumstance. Real identity— your identity and mine—is the radiantly pure and holy expression of God, who is Love.

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