I woke up one day this week and wondered why I felt weary and burdened. However, on some thought, I realised I was carrying some things I shouldn’t have been and that these things had been consuming far too much of my thoughts and thinking time.
We can easily pick up stuff around us and start to absorb other people’s or the world’s circumstances so much that it can get us off focus, or we end up feeling so exhausted that we have no time for what is important in our life.
The best way to explain this tendency is that we can act like a vacuum cleaner sucking up and absorbing mess and clutter all around us, rather than being a leaf blower and cleaning up and removing debris that may be littering the path by blowing it out of the way.
Leaf blowers, by definition, clean up by blowing unwanted leaves and rubbish into piles so that they can be gathered up and thrown away whilst leaving the things that have been planted and should be in that position in place.
God never wants us to suck up and absorb the world’s or other people’s problems so that they become part of us. Rather he says, my burdens are light, and my yoke is easy. He wants us to be aware of the issues around us and to use the authority in prayer we have in Jesus to blow those problems away.
Jesus taught us to speak to the mountain, and it would be removed. To calm storms, feed the hungry, heal the sick and seek Him for provision. (Matthew 17:20-21; Mark 4:35-41; Matthew 14:13-21; Matthew 8)
Jesus didn’t absorb people’s issues but rather went about doing the will of the Father and making wrong things right. He essentially blew away sickness, lack, loss and disappointments wherever he went and, rather than allow circumstances to change him, made circumstances change to what he said and did.
Today I encourage you not to be like a vacuum cleaning absorbing all the mess and rubbish of life into yourself so that you become weighed down, burdened and distracted.
By all means, seek to love people and to look for a need and meet it, and find hurts and ask Jesus to use you to help heal them, but in the process, be like a leaf blower and clear the rubbish and mess out of the way so that what God has planned and planted in yours and others’ lives will have the best opportunity to grow and develop rather than be overshadowed by mess and distractions.
“Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for us”. Just throw it on him, and let him carry your burdens. Jesus said we could cast all of our cares on him because he cares for us! There is nothing we are going through that we cannot cast on the Lord.” (1 Peter 5:7)
“He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers”. (Psalm 1:3)
Prayer: Lord, please help me to have the wisdom to know how to be there for other people but not to absorb all their “stuff” as I am. That I would instead believe and pray so that wrong things are “blown” out of the way, enabling that which is right and good to grow and develop. In Jesus name Amen.
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