Psalms 55:23: “Cast your burden on the Lord and He will sustain you. He will never permit the righteous to be moved (collapse).”
There is the story in the Talmud of a poor man who had no wagon or donkey to carry his heavy bundles. He had to carry the load on his back and walk many miles with his burdens to the village. A wealthy man with a large wagon rode by. Seeing the poor man struggle with his burdens, he stopped and offered the man a ride. The poor man was more than grateful to have his burden eased.
After traveling some time, the wealthy man noticed that his companion was sitting with his bundles still upon his shoulders. “Why don’t you put your belongings down,” Asked the wealthy man. “There is plenty of room in my wagon to lay your burdens down. Are they not heavy?”
“Indeed they are,” sighed the poor man. “But you have been more than gracious to offer me a ride and I do not wish to take advantage of you by weighing down your wagon.”
When you accepted Jesus as your personal Savior, He not only took your life, He also took on your burdens. To not take your burden off your own shoulders and lay it upon Jesus makes you about as foolish as this poor man.
I know, what you are thinking, “Yeah, yeah, cast your burden upon the Lord, I tried that I throw my burden on the Lord but for some reason it still weighs upon my shoulders.” Well the Bible does not say throw your burden on the Lord but cast you burdens on Him.
I remember translating Psalms 55:23 in one of my Hebrew classes and one rather insightful student in my class pointed out, “There are conditions to casting your burden upon the Lord.” If you examine Psalms 55:23 I think you will indeed discover what those conditions are that will allow you to release your burdens and place them upon Jesus.
The first condition is that we must cast our burdens on Him. The word cast here is hasheleke. This is an infinitive in an imperative form. It is not that we have the opportunity to cast our burdens upon Him, we are commanded to do it. God is literally ordering us to do it. Let’s face it, we are not going to accomplish much service for Him if we walk around with a heavy burden.
Note, too that this is also in an infinitive form. We are to continually be casting our burdens upon Him. This is more than just going to the front of the church and having the preacher pray over you every Sunday. This is a day by day, moment by moment discipline. Our burdens are sort of like a magnet, it just keeps jumping back on our shoulders and we need to continually be taking it off and giving it back to God. There is a fringe benefit to continually be casting your burden upon the Lord and that is that if you follow this practice it will continually keep you before the presence of God.
The word cast comes from the root word shalak. It its Semitic root it is a picture a flower being blown away from its plant by the wind. In other words it is not you doing the casting, but you exposing yourself to the wind and letting the wind blow your burdens away from your. I wonder if maybe Jesus had this in mind when He said in John 3:8: “The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” The Holy Spirit is pictured as the wind. We can not control Him or order Him around, we just have to expose ourselves to Him and let Him blow away our burdens.
Here is something interesting, the word burden is yehaveka which literally means He has given you. It is from the root word yahav which means to give. The most common word in Hebrew for giving is nathan. However, yahav also means to give but this is the giving of responsibility, nathan is the giving of a blessing. Think about it, most of the burdens you carry are really the result of responsibility you have. Your, job weighs you down, because of the responsibility. The stresses of your family because of your responsibility to them. When you begin to feel you are failing in your responsibility, you are then burdened down. When God gives you a responsibility he also gives you a wagon to carry the burden of that responsibility, we are to just fulfill our responsibility not carry the burdens that come with it, that’s the Lord’s job, we just sit back and enjoy the responsibilities God has given to us.
Note the last condition here: He will never let the righteous man be moved. I know it sounds more like a statement of fact than a condition, but notice that it is referring to a righteous man. The final condition is that you must righteous or that you are seeking to do the right thing. Whenever you seek to do the right thing, even if you are wrong in what you are doing, when you expose yourself to the wind of the Holy Spirit, He will blow that burden upon the Father who will Romans 8:28 it, make all things work together and you will not be moved. The word moved in the Hebrew is mot which means to fall down or collapse. This is sort of a play on another word that is also pronounced mot which means death. Mot (move) ends with a Teth where mot (death) ends with a Taw. Mot with the Teth carries the idea of collapsing playing off the word for death. He will never let the righteous collapse under their burden, He won’t let it kill you off.
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