Unburdened

How would your life look different if you trusted God—really, implicitly trusted him—to take care of your problems? What would happen if you took the concerns that grip you, that keep you awake at night, that clench your stomach in knots . . . and truly put them in his hands?

Unburdened suggests that there's a more weightless way to live than most of us are experiencing. God promised us freedom from worry, yet few people actually walk in that freedom. But we can. We were made for deep-down, heart-level peace. 

read excerpt

Tyndale 2010, paperback and e-book

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   EXCERPT

I remember the feeling clearly. I had just completed a very difficult term and was driving home from college with an entire summer ahead of me. There were no more oppressive exams or papers hanging over my head, no messy relationship issues lingering in the background, no financial pressures in the foreseeable future, no nagging health problems. The windows were rolled down, and the fresh air of early summer washed over me at highway speed. Life felt good.

In a way, it’s sad that I can remember that particular moment so many years ago. I wish it was one of many such moments, but it was unique—a brief haven in time, a last vestige of childhood—and I haven’t felt that way since. That’s why it sticks out in my memory. It was a very rare exception to normal life.

I want that feeling back. I didn’t have it very often in childhood, and I certainly haven’t had it since that summer break in college. But it seems to me that this is how we were designed to live—with hearts that aren’t stressed out by the burdens of life but are free to soar and enjoy and dream. We feel alive when we aren’t weighed down by burdens, and we instinctively know something’s wrong when we are. It seems that we have an inherent desire to go through life weightlessly.

You know that desire. Everyone does. You get a glimpse of it every time you look forward to Friday or plan that desperately needed getaway. Whenever you get a brief respite, you kick back and enjoy the quietness and wish life were always so hassle-free. Every desire to unwind, to take a break, to carve out some quiet time from a busy schedule, to escape into a book or movie, to dream about the day you retire, to laugh and forget about the demands on your life for a moment—it’s all a hint of that craving to be as free as God intended for you to be. We all want to live without feeling like we’re under extreme pressure. 

I can hear the objections already. “That isn’t realistic.” “God didn’t intend for us to live without responsibilities.” “You’re describing childhood, not adulthood.” And that’s all true—to a degree, which we’ll discuss later. But the Bible undeniably offers us a certain weightlessness to life, and most Christians aren’t living in it. Though life in a broken world is full of concerns and problems, the “good news” is supposed to actually be good. There are answers. There’s a better way to live. Through God’s promises and the hope and faith he stirs up within us, we can have a level of freedom that people who don’t know him can’t have. We don’t have to submit to the oppression of our concerns. We are called “overcomers” and “more than conquerors” for a reason. No matter how heavy the weights on our shoulders are, we can’t ultimately be defeated by them. The rest of the world can’t say that. We have resources others don’t have. ...

© 2010 by Chris Tiegreen