Blessed: Burdens

Today was such an awesome message at church. It's something that's really been on my mind lately too. We are continuing in our "Blessed" series and today we talked about how God has blessed us with a burden. A burden is where you feel called to make a difference because you can't stand not doing anything about it anymore.

There are three things we have to ask ourselves in order to identify our divine burden:

1. What breaks your heart?
2. What makes you angry?
3. What do you care about that others don't?

God will use you to change these things that you are burdened about. It's those things that no one else may even care about, but that you are passionate about. Things that break your heart and make you angry to see happening. It could be the homeless, starving children, orphans, etc.

Our Pastor said our challenge this week was to fill in this blank:
I'm burdened by ____________________.

That is a huge and exciting challenge for me. I have been thinking about and trying to answer this question all year long, ever since I rededicated my life to the Lord. I know that the Lord must have something planned for me, but I haven't quite figured it out yet. What I really liked is he said that it is our job as a church to help each person with their burden. It is our job to help each person and give them what they need to move to action and help them make a difference regarding their divine burden. I loved that! So, once I figure out what area I am to make a difference in, I should be able to go to my church and get all the support I need to carry it out. That is so awesome!!!!

We talked about the wrong ways to approach your burden. One thing you shouldn't do is complain about it. You don't see something that bothers you and just talk about how it's someone else's fault or the government's fault or whatever. You should shut up, stop complaining about it, and do something about it!! Another wrong way to deal with a burden is to just ignore it. You shouldn't bury your head in the sand and act like it doesn't exist or pretend it's not there. You also don't want to simply appease it. Alot of times, we feel burdened about a certain cause and we will just do one little thing so we can feel better, like maybe give a little donation, and then we move on. Or like a mission trip, where for a week you do what you can, but then once you're home, you check that burden off the list because of that one week of work.

I take what our Pastor is saying as meaning that God gives us these burdens because He knows we can make a difference. He can use us to do great things, if we will actually do something about it! Our Pastor said you should let your burden ruin you. Let your burden overcome and overwhelm you to the point that you are broken and you surround yourself with it and let it affect you. We often think that blessings are supposed to allow us to live a burden-free life, but that's not what it's about. We are supposed to let our burden move us to action. In Isaiah 6:8, Isaiah says, "Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!"" Isaiah could not sit by anymore, and he was telling the Lord, "pick me, pick me!"

We have to allow God to make us uncomfortable and move us to action. And I love this last thing our Pastor said. I think it is genius, really!

Be foolish enough to think that you can do what others claim can't be done!

I told you it was good! So, have you identified your divine burden yet? Please let me know what it is if you have! I have so many things I care about and am interested in, but I would love to figure out which one of those is my divine burden. I'm really excited about it!

Also, you remember our church participated in One Prayer a while back? Well, the 2000 churches that participated in One Prayer raised about 1/2 a million dollars on that one Sunday that they took donations. They have started churches in Sudan, China, and other countries and have had tens of thousands of baptisms as a result! Amazing!!

I published this post and then I realized I totally forgot to mention something. The first thing was that we had a different music guy today, because ours was camping. You know how much I love my music. LOL! This guy has been there before and he has an amazing voice. He even has his own CD, but I had no money today with me to buy one :( Once I find out what his CD is called, I will share it with you!

The other thing was that we were all invited over to our Pastor's home to have lunch with them. He made a huge pot of gumbo and it was delicious! The girls had so much fun playing outside with his girls and the guys watched the Texans game and I got to visit with some of the ladies I don't normally see much, except for a few minutes at church, so it was really neat.

Hope everyone had a fabulous Sunday too!