Burdens...

A common form of torture in medieval times (and perhaps some time after that) was taking a person that one sought a confession from and laying him on his back. Blocks of varying weight would then be placed upon the chest causing the person to feel the great weight and lose their ability to adequately breathe. The design of the torture was to make the victim feel the horrible desire to want to breathe, enough that they would confess to almost anything. Sounds horrible, especially to one that is claustrophobic.

Its hard to imagine that type of pressure and pain...or is it? I have often wondered what went through the minds of some of those victims as they lay there in immense pain, trying to figure out why they were being victimized. In many cases they were being forced to recant religious positions, did they lay there thinking, why me? Did they lay there thinking, God after all I have done for You, this is how you repay me? Did they perhaps lay there in silent meditation seeking God's grace to get through one final trial? Its impossible to know what they thought, but my guess is that while they may have panicked on the outset, eventually they resigned themselves to death and committed their lives into the hand of God. Maybe, just maybe that is the point of burdens after all...

As I write this, I am burdened about a great many things. Inwardly (and outwardly I suppose) I complain about these burdens. "God why do I have so much to read and write about", "God why is my family of 4 small kids so stressful", "God, why is your church here in America so dull", and the list goes on and on. And all the while, another block is piled on and I feel my own helplessness. I feel the painful burden of often times being supremely unworthy to do the task to which I have been called. That is the point I think. It seems so sadistic from a human perspective. Why put people in positions to constantly be confronted with their own failures and shortcomings? The answer is simple really...that we might cry out for mercy.

Its never really about how much weight we can stand up under, it is about getting to a point where we confess that we need mercy under the great weight of the burden. The practice of torture was designed to make people give up, and the design of burdens in life is much the same. Burdens come that we might realize just how much we need something outside our selves. We were never designed to be as individualistic as we desire to be, hence burdens are in our lives that we might embrace the community that God designed us to live in. Essentially we are called not only to cast our cares upon the Lord, but also to bear one anther's burdens. That is, we are called to community and humility. we are called upon to admit that we need help with our burdens. So, why the burdens of life? So that we might realize that there is more to life than just self. The more weight that is put on, the more I cry out for mercy and the more I cry out for mercy, the more I walk in dependence upon Christ. Burdens are heavy, they are supposed to be, but we don't have carry them alone, indeed, I don't think we are meant to.