Burdens

Isaiah (whom I affectionately call 'The Whiner') wrote about many burdens. For Babylon (13), for Moab (15), for Damascus (17), for Egypt (19), for the desert of the sea (21), for the valley of vision (22), for Tyre (23).

My better half once mentioned that it is strange to think about God's compelling will for us as a 'burden'. Burdened to go, burdened to do, burdened to give. Isn't carrying a burden something that the Lord would not want us to do?

A burden is 'an onerous or difficult concern', 'a load or weight to be borne or conveyed' in the secular definition. On kingjamesbibleonline.org, a burden is defined as 'a load of any kind' (Ex. 23:5) or, 'a severe task' (Ex. 2:11); 'A difficult duty, requiring effort' (Ex. 18:22), or "a prophecy of a calamitous or disastrous nature (Isa. 13:1, 17:1; Hab 1:1).

Does a burden make one unhappy? Or stressed? Worrisome? It seems highly so. When I try to share the gospel with a pre-believer, it does, in most times, make me quite unhappy, stressed and worried. The negativity comes about because salvation is 'an onerous or difficult concern', and soul--winning, 'a difficult duty, requiring effort'. Sowing the gospel seeds is as back-breaking as sowing the rice fields.

Nevertheless, because we need the harvest, we persevere to sow the fields.