By: Pastor Jarren Rogers

“If you feel the weight of your circumstances is too heavy to bear, maybe it’s because the burden is yours, not His.”

– Jennifer Rothschild

Annie and I were seeking out new furniture so we decided that we could make a special trip to the popular Swedish furniture megastore, Ikea.

We meandered through countless kitchens and living rooms, pondered over numerous bookshelves of all colors and shapes, and we examined a variety of chair cushions for maximum comfort and fluffiness.

It wasn’t until we reached the end of our one-way trek through the store that we finally reached the warehouse. It is here that you heave your desired furniture off the shelves onto your cart and wheel them to the checkout.

We hunted down our bookshelf without too much difficulty. It was in a box positioned on the bottom shelf, so I bent over to lift it onto our cart. It was therein that I realized my mistake. The bookshelf was rather heavy.

After pulling and tugging, shoving and lifting, Annie and I finally managed to muscle it onto our cart. The problem was…we needed three.

A short while and a couple of bottles of sweat later we finally left Ikea with our bookshelves. We drove the hour and a half home, and it was while we were pulling into our garage that I realized our next issue. The office that was going to be sporting these weighty bookshelves was upstairs.

Now, I’m no bodybuilder and Annie can barely offer a firm handshake, let alone lift these bookshelves up a flight of stairs. But between the two of us, we eventually hauled the three heavy boxes upstairs and laid them on the office floor.

It was there that I realized my third issue. Someone was going to have to put these bookshelves together. We bought them from Ikea after all.

Sweat gathered in my forehead and drenched my shirt as I was halfway through building the first shelf. I then realized I put a part on backward. So I deconstructed it and rebuilt it the correct way. Rinse and repeat for two hours and you see how my afternoon went.

It was when my frustration grew while building the shelf, that my mind went back to the last time Annie and I got furniture. We didn’t get it from Ikea, but instead, from another furniture store. We didn’t have to haul it out of the store ourselves, but instead, they delivered it to our house. We didn’t have to build the furniture on our own, but instead someone else had put it together for us.

Someone else bore the burden in my place. It was only after hauling and building the furniture on my own, that I realized how big of a burden it was.

But the truth is, the delivery guys from that furniture store were much more qualified to bear that burden. They had machines to carry the load, a truck to haul it, and experience to build it.

How often do we bear burdens we were never meant to bear. Why don’t we give it over to the One who is much more qualified to bear them?

“Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens.” (Psalm 68:19).