The Burden
The rain was really coming down at 3:00 this morning. And not just at 3:00, it rained steady and hard nearly all night. The very thing that would usually put me right to sleep was the only thing that I could hear hour upon hour and yet I was far from sleep. Periodically, I have this type of night. I laid still but my mind was traveling the course of life and eternity. Dave the Zealot would tell me that a sleepless night means there is some sin in my life. More times than not, he was right. But this night was different. This night I did deal with some sin. Beyond the sin I sensed a burden that is difficult to identify. As of yet, I am not sure what the burden means or even how to discern it. However, through the examples of Nehemiah, Noah, Job, Paul, Daniel, Moses, Elijah and a host of other saints of old, I know the next step. Brokenness……….I’m not sure if the burden is ever identified before the brokenness comes. One must be willing to accept and even facilitate the brokenness in order to know the burden. Brokenness is the mechanism for subduing the flesh which rejects in total the burden of God. Once brokenness comes then comes the blessing. Oh, to know the pleasure and purpose of God. Sleepless nights are a small price to pay to become sensible to burdens, susceptible to brokenness and subject to the blessings of God.
K
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This evening I, too, dealt with some sin. The problem, if you wish to call it that, is not coming up with sins to confess–10 seconds of my own thought life is plenty damning and then some–no, the difficulty is in reaching deep for those that I don’t really want to let loose of, and then once done to grasp hold (not with a deathgrip but with a lifegrip) of the forgiveness that He promises. That’s when the work begins. See, once that forgiveness is acknowledged, the responsibility for maintaining my repentence falls upon me. Oh, not that I’ve not the sufficiency of the strength of Christ to draw upon, yes, indeed it is there and I do. It is the remembering of it that too often escapes me. Bother. Nay, but, it feels clean to be shed of these things.
I appreciate what you write about brokenness. Having been brought to the end of myself more than once (there’s evidently a good bit of me that needs to be wrung out of me), I cherish the aftermath of the pain and the glorious lightness that comes with it–that is what the picture of blessings comes framed in.
Gotta go. I’ll drop back by again later.
Rod - November 6, 2007 at 11:31 am