The Burden

David wrote this out of a particular and crushing grief. His trouble was not an enemy, which a man can steel himself against, but a friend. It was not an enemy, he says, that reproached me, then I could have borne it, but it was thou, a man mine equal, my guide, and mine acquaintance. The one who had walked with him to the house of God had turned against him, and his heart was sore pained within him, and the terrors of death were fallen upon him. It is out of that weight, and not out of ease, that the counsel comes, and this is why it can be trusted. Cast thy burden upon the LORD, and he shall sustain thee.

Notice the word cast. It is not a gentle setting down, not a gradual easing of the load from tired shoulders. It is a throwing, a deliberate hurling of the weight off ourselves and onto another. The psalmist does not say the burden is imaginary, or that a stronger man would not feel it. The burden is real, and heavy, and named. But it is to be cast, transferred bodily from our shoulders to the shoulders of God, by a definite act of the will that says, this weight is too great for me, and I will carry it no longer, and I throw it upon the One who can bear it.

THE WEIGHT WE WERE NOT MADE TO CARRY

We must learn to tell apart the burdens we are meant to carry from the burden we are meant to cast, for the Scripture speaks of both and does not confuse them. Every man shall bear his own burden, the apostle says, the daily pack of his own duty and responsibility, the ordinary load that belongs to a life and is not meant to be thrown off onto anyone. But there is another weight, the crushing kind, the load too heavy for the soul, and of that the same apostle says, bear ye one another’s burdens, and the psalmist says, cast it upon the LORD. The daily pack we carry. The crushing load we cast. Much of our trouble is that we try to carry the crushing load, staggering under a weight God never meant to be on our shoulders at all.

And chief among the weights we were never built to bear is the weight of tomorrow. We take the trouble of the future, which has not come and may never come, and we lift it onto today’s shoulders, and we buckle under a load that is not even ours to carry yet. Take therefore no thought for the morrow, the Lord said, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. The strength we are given is for today’s burden, measured to the day. When we drag tomorrow’s burden into today, we crush ourselves under a weight for which no strength was ever promised, because we were never meant to carry it.

CASTING, AND CASTING AGAIN

But the casting is not done once and finished. The apostle Peter takes up the psalmist’s word and puts it in a form that shows its ongoing nature. Casting all your care upon him, he writes, for he careth for you. It is a continual casting, for the burden has a way of creeping back onto the shoulders the moment we turn around. We cast it in the morning and find it back by noon, cast it in prayer and pick it up again in worry, and so the casting must be renewed, again and again, a settled practice of throwing the weight back onto God each time we find it once more upon ourselves. This is no failure. It is the ordinary rhythm of a soul learning, slowly, to leave its burden where it has cast it.

And notice the ground on which we cast it, for it is the sweetest part. Cast all your care upon him, Peter says, for he careth for you. We cast the burden on God not because he is a distant strong one who can be imposed upon, but because he cares, because our trouble is his concern, because he wants the weight off us more than we want it off ourselves. He does not receive our burden grudgingly, as an imposition. He invites it, because he cares for us. The casting is not the hurling of a weight at an indifferent God. It is the handing of a load to a Father who was already reaching out his hands for it.

HE SHALL SUSTAIN THEE

And mark carefully what is promised to the one who casts, for it is not always what we ask. He shall sustain thee, the psalmist says. Not, he shall instantly remove the trouble, but, he shall sustain thee, hold you up, bear you through. Sometimes God takes the burden clean away. Often he does not, but does a deeper thing, and sustains us under it, and strengthens us to carry what remains with a strength that is plainly not our own. As thy days, so shall thy strength be, was the old promise, strength meted to the day and the burden of the day. We are not always spared the load. We are always, if we cast it on him, sustained under it.

And the end of it is stability. He shall never suffer the righteous to be moved. The soul that has cast its burden upon the LORD is not toppled. It may be shaken, battered, driven hard against, but it is not moved from its footing, not carried off, not overthrown. There is a settledness that comes to the one who has transferred his weight to God, a rootedness that the storm cannot uproot, because the weight that would have toppled him is no longer on his shoulders but on the shoulders of the Almighty. Blessed be the Lord, the psalmist sings elsewhere, who daily loadeth us with benefits, the God who takes our loads and gives us his.

THE FRIEND WHO NEVER FAILS

Remember what the burden was that first drew this psalm out of David. It was not an enemy, but a friend, a man his equal, his guide and his acquaintance, the one who had walked with him to the house of God and then turned against him. The deepest burdens are so often these, the wounds of love, the failures of the very ones we leaned on, and they are the hardest of all to carry, for they take away in the same blow both the weight and the shoulder we would have leaned on to bear it. No human friend, however dear, can finally hold such a weight, for the human friend is himself the kind of creature who may one day be the very burden.

But there is a Friend of another kind. There is a friend, the proverb says, that sticketh closer than a brother. When the equal fails, and the guide turns, and the acquaintance proves false, there is One who never turns, whose friendship does not fail, upon whom the whole weight may be cast that no human shoulder could bear. Cast it there. The burden that the failing friend could not carry, and that in failing he became, cast it upon the Friend who will not fail, and let him bear both the weight and the wound of it together.

And this Friend is no stranger to the weight he receives. He is the great burden-bearer, of whom the prophet said, surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows. When we cast our burden upon him we do not hurl it at a God who watches our trouble from a height, untouched. We hand it to one who has carried the like of it in his own body and soul, a High Priest touched with the feeling of our infirmities, who was in all points tempted and tried as we are. He receives our burden with the understanding of one who has borne it, and there is no weight we can bring him that he does not already know from the inside.

This is why the Scripture bids us come, of all things, boldly. Let us therefore come boldly, it says, unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need. Boldly, not hesitantly, not as those unsure of their welcome, but boldly, because the One on the throne is the Friend who bore our griefs and knows our frame. The casting of the burden is a bold and confident act, the act of a soul that knows it is casting its weight not upon a reluctant stranger but upon a faithful Friend who was reaching for it before ever we thought to give it.

So name the burden that is crushing you, the grief, the fear, the trouble you were never built to carry, and do not merely sigh under it. Cast it. Throw it, by a deliberate act of trust, off your own shoulders and onto the Lord, and when you find it has crept back, cast it again, and again, as often as it returns, for he careth for you and wants it off you. Do not demand that he always take the trouble away, but trust that he will sustain you under it, with strength measured to the day. And stand, unmoved, battered but not toppled, for he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved. Cast thy burden upon the LORD, and he shall sustain thee.