Read the transcript from today's video devotional.
Have you ever had a relationship that went south? A relationship with somebody that you thought would last a lifetime that just didn't end up working out? People got hurt and it just didn't seem like it was possible to be fixed. I can think back on so many relationships with people that I thought were going to last a lifetime that ended up not working out, and sometimes it was because other people didn't end up being who I thought they were. Honestly, just as many times I was probably the problem where I wasn't who they thought I was.
In either situation, I want you to consider how you respond when a relationship that matters to you starts to hurt you. Do you get angry and retaliate? Or do you look upwards for a better solution?
David's Burden
There's a verse in the Psalms that helps us navigate this dynamic, and it comes from Psalm chapter 55, verse 22. David writes, "Give your burdens to the LORD, and He will take care of you. He will not permit the godly to slip and fall."
Psalm chapter 55 is a really weighty psalm. Sometimes when I read through the Psalms, I forget that there's a very real context, a very real life season or situation that the psalmist is going through. We know that Psalm chapter 55 is written during a time that David has been incredibly hurt and betrayed by somebody that used to be really, really close to him. The psalm doesn't say explicitly who that is, but it's believed that David actually wrote this when his own son Absalom betrayed him with one of his very trusted advisors.
I can't imagine the way that David would have felt in this moment. His own kid, that he had raised and hoped would walk with the Lord just as he had walked, who would learn from his own mistakes, who would go on to do greater things than he had ever imagined as king, suddenly was the one who was hurting him more than anybody else.
Give Your Burdens to God
I love what David shows us. First, he shows us that it's okay to make space to grieve. It's okay to make space to be hurt and feel angry. What he does with all of that is what really matters. What David does is he doesn't hold on to all that. He actually packages it up into this prayer and then he sends it off to God. I love the language that he uses. He says, "Give your burdens to the Lord."
This isn't just sharing your burdens with God, because sometimes we'll share our burdens with our friends. In the moment, it seems like it helps because we're finally getting stuff off of our chest. But once that conversation ends and we walk away, the burden is still ours to carry. It's not their problem. But what David is telling us to do here is to actually give our burdens to God.
I want to really ask you to think about whether or not you are giving your burdens to God when you share with Him all of the hurts, especially in those ones in relationships that matter. Are you just sharing them with Him but then holding on to the weight? Because He doesn't want you to do that. He invites you to cast all of your cares onto Him, to give Him that heaviness, and that requires that you trust Him to deal with it. That requires you to find peace in knowing that He will provide, in knowing that everything can be taken away from you and He would still be enough.
My Own Experience
I'm not saying this is easy. I'm going through this right now. There is a very special relationship with somebody that I've had for years that was broken, and there was a lot of deep hurt, and it's starting to be rekindled. But there are days where I'm just still angry and I want to lash back. There are days where I'm afraid of getting hurt again, and I want to close myself off. But I need to take all those feelings and I need to give them to God. Because as I do that, the Lord is showing me a whole new side of His character. He's showing me a deeper sense of compassion and grace more than I've ever seen before, all because I'm learning to actually give my burdens to God.
He Will Not Permit the Godly to Slip and Fall
I want to point out the second half of this verse. See, David says that He will not permit the godly to slip and fall. Maybe your thought when you read that is, but I do feel like I slip and I fall. I do feel like I stumble. What about those moments where you do get angry again, where it hurts all over again?
Well, the original word in the Hebrew that's translated here, "slip and fall," actually means to be shaken. It's used in other passages, it talks about the earth being shaken. The point is that there might be times where it hurts again. But when we put our lives on the unshakable foundation of Jesus Christ, whatever hits us is never going to cause us to crumble. It's never going to cause us to come to the end of ourselves, to be destroyed. Through it all, we will stand firm on our God who will get us through it all.
In those moments where you're dealing with something that hurts really bad, give yourself permission to feel it. Then give it to God. When He's in control, there is nothing that can shake you.
