October 4th

I have to admit that I had a little bit of a hissy fit on Facebook, (an internet social networking site) the other day. Now, the exact subject doesn’t matter, neither does the person it was directed to. All that matters is that they’re not within my current geographical or congregational confines, and that the rant was not personal, mean or intended to cause pain or suffering. It was simply a personal need to counter an opinion that was driving me crazy, and is also one of those things that a minority expresses loudly, while the majority seems to have no reply, and if they do, no courage to speak it.
Well, I said my piece, got my thoughts off my chest, and felt all the better for it. It wasn’t an earth shattering subject, my opinion will not be remembered as one of the great philosophical moments of the century, but it mattered that I reacted vocally and quickly. It felt good. It was soul-lifting, frustration-relieving and generally deep down satisfying to speak my mind. It also helped to galvanize my views, taking them from a vague feeling of discontent and discomfort up to the level of conscious, careful and clear thinking. My reaction also served to spur others on and to affirm that what I was thinking on my own was a true reflection of what others were thinking.
God doesn’t seem to mind these little moments of frustrated self-expression. In fact God seems to approve of them given the number of times we read in the Psalms about how tough David is having it. Ok, his problems were a lot bigger than mine. I can assure you that I wasn’t responding to someone who wanted to kill me or overthrow my kingdom. At the same time the mere fact that David’s various laments were recorded gives us permission to let loose when something weighs us down.
Jesus Himself encourages us to leave our burdens with Him, to take a load off our shoulders so He can give us something more manageable. He doesn’t, however, tell us what to put on Him; there are no minimum or maximum size requirements, no limits on the frequency we let Him help us, no measure of what constitutes a burden worthy of His attention. Jesus just invites us to turn our weighty issues over to Him so that we can receive His easy load.
Of course, just like my actually writing my rant on Facebook, we actually have to turn things over to Him, which means we actually have to talk to Him. It’s not enough just to assume He knows what we need, or that we know what He has in store for us. In order for Jesus to take on our burden we have to be in touch with Him; the lines of communication open so that  when we need Him, or He has something for us, we can get the message across. All it takes is a little regular prayer. At least that’s the way I see it.