Cast your burden to the LORD, and He shall sustain you.
Psalm 55:22
David, who pens this Psalm, was referring to burdens of the heart, not on the back. So very often it is the emotional burden which surpasses the physical. This verse, like all, can never be mined thoroughly yet let us consider a couple of aspects–
First is the very mention of burdens. Remember this Psalm is from David. He was a king. He was wealthy. He was godly. And now he is aged. These simply remind us that burdens come to the high as well as the low, to the rich as well as the poor, to saints as well as sinners, to the old as well as the youth. Our tendency is to believe our burdens are heavier than those others. We often think if we could simply escape into someone else’s shoes. But we are wrong. Burdens simply cannot be dodged.
David’s advice, “Cast your burden to the LORD.” You might sigh with heaviness in the niceness of such thought, but you simply cannot carry out this advice. If it were simply physical or material perhaps it could be solved, but this mental and emotional burden is complex and confounding. In fact, with each day the weight of it is enlarging and draining.
Consider the words from David, from his heart towards and for ours today. We are to cast our burden to the LORD, we are not to stand alone. There is a promise coupled with the burden as we cast it. The promise is the reality of the sustaining love and wisdom of God for you. The promise says that “He shall sustain you”– not just the burden minus you. We like to the idea of heaving our burdens away– to be done with it or them. The Psalm does not hint at that, as much as we might prefer. But the Psalm does say that we are to hand our burden to God, while also handing ourselves into His hand. It is with Him that we with our burden are sustained. The burden may still be there, but the weight, the drag and the bitterness will be gone.
Remember, God loves to beyond fathom. Because of His love He feels for you as you carry a heavy burden. His desire is to not only carry your burden but you also. Peter reminds us of this, in First Peter 5:6–
Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God,that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him,for He cares for you.
The latter part of this verse from Phillips–
You can throw the whole weight of your anxieties upon Him,for you are His personal concern.
Maranatha!