The assembly I attend is full of weight lifters. I wouldn’t call it a fad exactly. It’s really a passion with them, has been for a long time. In fact, some of them have been doing it for 70 years! Unbelievable? Wait till you hear what they can lift.
Weight lifting has come a long way in our society since the days Charles Atlas advertized for skinny weaklings tired of being the underdogs. Glossy “muscle” magazines sit side by side with respected journals on the bookstore shelves. Health food stores promote diet supplements to add “bulk” for serious lifters. And U. S. Drug Enforcement officials are becoming increasingly frantic about the skyrocketing abuse of illegal steroid drugs, used to promote tissue growth for rapid body building. They estimate the black market sale of steroids has topped $400 million. And there seems to be no end in sight. Steve Courson (quoted in U. S. News), a former professional football player, states in his recent book, False Glory: “In the NFL, I was nothing more than a highly paid, highly manipulated, gladiator. I was spiritually bankrupt.” He adds, “The root of steroid use is society’s addiction to bigger, faster, stronger. The win-at-all-costs mentality . . . ”
But my friends at the assembly don’t know anything about this unseemly side of weight lifting. It wouldn’t help them anyway. The weights they lift would bring a strong man to his knees. Which is exactly how it’s done–on your knees.
Are there burdens to be borne among the people of God today? Are there burdens! There are burdened bodies as the old tents of our earthly pilgrimage are taken down, sometimes one peg at a time. There are heart burdens as we ache for wayward children, physical or spiritual. There are mind burdens of business pressures, family pressures, assembly pressures. There are soul burdens of unconfessed sin, unfulfilled promises, unspoken hurts. And there are spirit burdens as we long to be like Him, as we long that others know Him, as we long to be with Him. Burdens indeed.
Yet there are, it seems to me, only three classes of burdens spoken of in the Christian’s life. For each there is a different way to deal with it.
1) The burden you should bear (Gal. 6:5). Each believer has “his own burden,” measured out by the Lord for you, and not an ounce too much. Like the little fellow standing as his father placed firewood in his outstretched arms. “Isn’t that enough?” asked an observer. “My daddy knows when I have enough,” was the reply. Your Father knows too. So no shirking! When yoked with Him, the burden is light.
2) The burden you should share (Gal. 6:2). How thankful the weary climber is to have someone stronger, fresher in the climb to offer to share the load. How many a saint, ready to go down, has been innervated for the steepening path by a helping hand, a cheering word, or a thoughtful deed. Is there someone you can do a little weight lifting for today? A prayer? A card? A call? A handclasp? A smile? A little visit? “Support the weak” (1 Thess. 5:14), instructed Paul. But he would also tell us that his resolute spirit needed comfort too (con-fortis = adding strength), and Titus arrived just in time.
3) The burden for His care (Psalm 55:22). Is there something to do, somewhere to go when you can’t make it another step? Then “Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain thee: He shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.” What mighty shoulders He has; the government of the universe rests easily upon them. Once those shoulders bore a cross for you. Cast it all on Him. He cares for you.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox offers this bit of homespun wisdom and a telling question:
There are two kinds of people on earth today,
Just two kinds of people, no more, I say.
The two kinds of people on earth I mean
Are the ones who lift and the ones who lean;
Wherever you go you will find the world’s masses
Are always divided in just these two classes;
And oddly enough it will clearly be seen
There’s only one lifter for twenty who lean.
In which class are you? Are you easing the load
Of overtaxed lifters who toil down the road?
Or are you a leaner who lets others bear
Your portion of lifting and labor and care?
They say you can tell a great deal about a person if, when they have a load to bear, they ask for a lighter load . . . or a stronger back.