Prayer: Jesus, remind us to plant burdens in Your hands and upon Your shoulders where they can bear good fruit. Amen

Scriptures: …and the government will be on His shoulders. Isaiah 9:6 NIV

Pile your troubles on God’s shoulders—He’ll carry your load, He’ll help you out. He’ll never let good people topple into ruin. Psalm 55:22 MSG

My yoke is easy and my burden is light. Matthew 11:30 NIV

We will be given burden seeds to plant this school year. At home these burdens may be illnesses, addictions, the death of loved ones, aging parents, marital issues, or parenting problems. At school these burdens may be job reassignments, challenging parents, administrators, co-workers or students, mandated ineffective programs or increased responsibilities with less time and fewer resources to fulfill them. We are not to plant these seeds in our pockets, upon our sleeves, in our souls, or upon our shoulders. We are to immediately plant them and release them back into the hand of God where He will plant them onto the shoulders of His Son, Jesus.

The government of the home, school, and community rests upon Jesus’ shoulders, not ours. God is the boss, not us. Our job is to inquire of Him, do what He is telling us and let Him take care of the rest. How many times have we impatiently made decisions without trusting, acknowledging, or inquiring of Him? Ways that seem right to us can lead to destruction (Proverbs 14:12).

I once made the mistake of planting a professional burden in the wrong place. The school district where I worked manipulated and violated the law by implementing full inclusion for almost all special needs students. This resulted in many frustrated, burnt out, less productive, and lower achieving students and educators. Instead of giving this burden to the Lord and inquiring of Him, I buried it on my shoulders and daily watered it with subconscious repressed anger.

This burden seed grew rapidly and bore the fruit of anger, sorrow, discontent, unrest, impatience, harshness, and loss of self-control. It led to my resignation several years later and my eventual recognition, repentance and confession of my own sin in dealing with this burden. Burden seeds, if not quickly placed in God’s hands and on Jesus’ shoulders, beget more and greater burdens.

What are you going to do with the burden seeds you will be given this year? When and where will you plant them? Give them to God. Inquire of Him. Trust and follow Him. Watch what He will do!

Reflection: What burdens am I carrying right now that need to be given to God?

Getting Real: Write down all your current burdens on a piece of paper. Read them aloud and commit them to God in prayer. Place them in your Bible or where He tells you to put them. Spiritually let go of them. Inquire of God. Do what He is telling you to do. Trust Him. Give Him time.

Copyright Don Clark.  To connect with the author, email dclark@christianeducators.org

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