Listening to some Rob Thomas and Michael Jackson tunes last night on the road home, lyrics from both artists talked about how “you’re no burden, I assure…” and “your burdens I will bear.” Immediately I thought of Jesus and said to Him, “I’ve already done that. I’ve given you all my burdens…”

To which He replied, “Then why do you still carry them?”

Boom. And there it is. Sometimes we say we’re leaving our worries at the foot of the cross, but we end up just putting the idea of the problem down and not the problem itself. Thinking we’ll “let Jesus take a look at this one, but we’ll see if we can’t also figure it out in the meantime.” (At least that is what it feels like I do sometimes.)

Being a Christian is about being freed up from burdens because WE KNOW Jesus can handle them. I guess one of the last vestiges of a long-lived but recently abandoned secular lifestyle in today’s society is the notion that we can handle things on our own without any help from God. To which a funny thought just occurred to me…

Why do we think we don’t need help with anything when we depend on indifferent strangers to make us our food as we sit in a beat up car with no gas in the drive-thru lane because we’re too lazy, too impatient, or too busy stumbling around trying to figure out the solution to a different problem aside from the current one that we’re hungry and only have a few bucks to spare?

That may not make sense to anyone else, but hey, this is my blog, right? 

Are our priorities out of whack with God’s? And if so, will that keep the car in neutral and us from going anyplace meaningful? Sometimes I feel like I’m doing something good and for the betterment of the world – something that I feel Jesus would be proud of – but I end up just pumping another dry well. No oil. Not even any water. Maybe it wasn’t my task to carry out? Maybe I jumped the gun? A big bag of “maybes” will weigh you down. You gotta toss those concerns in the nearest dumpster and keep moving forward. And, man, it is so much easier said than done to do anything worthwhile, lasting and against the grain. Rome wasn’t built in a day – it was debauched in about as much time – but it took a long while for the city to be made.

At the end of the day, if you’re gonna let go, then let go. If you’re gonna trust Jesus, then trust Jesus.