Really God?
I have Bible study with my supervisor and co-workers on Wednesdays, and it’s an amazing hour of togetherness with one another and with Jesus, as the Word of God. They are my sisters in the Lord, and for that hour, there is a beautiful vulnerability that takes place as we are challenged with what can sometimes be the challenging truth of our Savior’s instructions for us. I John 5:3 gave us one such challenge as we gathered together in person and via ZOOM. Not the whole verse, but that word that is not only in bold in the above scripture reference, but also in full caps, underlined, and italicized. Many of us had the same question / concern: how can He say His commands are not burdensome when we feel burdened by them sometimes, and on several occasions, most of the time?
What do I mean? Well, here are some examples:
Unmarried Christians may feel “burdened” with abstaining from pre-marital sex = not following His command to keep sexual intimacy confined to the marriage relationship.
Poor Christians may feel “burdened” by withholding their offering = not following His command to give
Single Parent Christians may feel “burdened” with not going to church as consistently as they should because they are too tired doing it all on their own = forsaking His command NOT to forsake gathering together.
How about the Christian suffering from a medical condition? He says that He has not given us the spirit of fear, and “fear not” is one of, if not the most repeated command in the Bible. Yet, without medication, and sometimes with it, fear creeps in and anxiety abounds.
My first thought as I was studying on my own before we got together as a group was, “burdensome must not mean the same thing in the Greek as it does in English; the translators got it wrong.” So, I looked it up, and I was wrong. In the Greek (for those of you who care), burdensome (or “grievous” which is the word the KJV uses) is Barus (Bar-ooce = phonetic spelling), and it means severe, stern, violent, cruel, unsparing, and weighty.
My second thought was, “keep reading, Keacha. You’ve been living burdened by some of His commands for a while, so there must be an “out” somewhere in the next few verses.” Wrong again! There wasn’t an “out”, but, thank God, there was an answer. Verse 4: “For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world--our faith.”
Now I want you to know that while I was talking to myself, I was also talking to the Lord, and me looking for an “out” was Him leading me to the answer I needed. So, what was the answer He pointed me to? Can I back track a bit first? For the past week, I’ve been aware of two songs on repeat in my head, while I was sleeping. One is the song “Jireh” by Maverick City & Elevation Worship and the other is “Battle” by One House Worship.
For the song “Jireh”, the words, “You are enough” kept repeating in my head, and for “Battle”, the words, “You’ve never lost one battle, You’ve never lost, You won’t stop now, I will win this battle, every giant must come down.”
Over and over, night after night, repeat repeat repeat. I LOVE when that happens! It feels good to sleep like that and wake up with songs about the Lord, instead of things from T.V shows that I watched or books that I read, or God forbid, problems at home or at work. Yes, it feels good, but I’ve also been saved long enough to know that the Lord isn’t just letting that happen to give me the feel-goods. Those are just the bonus. No, He’s allowing this to happen because He is trying to tell me something, and I need to listen. I can imagine Him smiling and with a bit of an eye roll, saying, “Yes, Keacha, enjoy the feel-goods, but don’t miss the message, Sis.”
I believe the message was tied up in that word that would haunt me from 1 John 5:3: burdensome.
So, what was the answer He pointed me to in verse 4 and how was it tied to those two songs? Actually, He gave me two answers.
The first answer was FAITH! Not faith in Him, as my Big Brother Savior, Bride Groom King, Lover of My Soul, etc. That’s a done deal! No, faith in Him to meet me in those areas that I haven’t gone to Him for freedom. Or, those areas that I went to Him for freedom, didn’t get the answer I wanted or understood, so I gave up and sought relief someplace else.
Which led me to answer #2: that “someplace else relief” is the burden, not His commands!
I’m a single woman, who has never been married, who wants to be married, who has been waiting for the slowest Boaz that God ever created to find her.
Sorry, can I rant for a bit? DUDE, WHERE ARE YOU? If you’re overseas, hit me up on Facebook! If you’re in jail, write a sistah a letter! If you’re just intimidated by “all the woman that I am”, then when you finally get up your courage….” Ok, rant over.
Like I said, I’m single, and like all humans on the planet, celibacy becomes a four letter word after a while. Well, I’m 48, so I could say it’s been a four letter word for a VERY LONG while, but that’s not really the case. I can honestly say about 90% of the time, I am fine with being celibate and waiting (despite my recent rant). So, I asked the Lord about the other 10%, when His command to wait feels like a burden. In a nutshell, what He told me is below:
“During those times, you are not trusting Me to fulfill your desire for marriage, you start to get antsy, anxious, etc. That’s when you feel that my commands are burdensome, severe, or even cruel. That’s when you go SOMEPLACE ELSE for RELIEF: That’s when you drown yourself in romance novels, which only makes you feel worse because you are not reading them for enjoyment but to fill a need that needs to be asleep until marriage. You’re trying to get relief for that need in something other than Me. That’s the burden you feel, because for the Christian, true relief is ONLY FOUND IN ME!"
“My commandments are not burdensome.”
Guess what y’all? He’s right! Of course He’s right! When I think about it, after that period of basically self-medicating on romance and rom-coms, when I go to God, repent, and He graciously forgives and provides that freedom from the burden, I realize it was the thing that I was using to feel better that actually made me feel worse. Once I pushed that aside and focused my gaze back on Him, re-affirmed my FAITH in His ability to fulfill my desire for marriage when and how He saw fit, I not only felt free, I was free. He is, after all, Jehovah Jireh, the Lord God my Provider! That is not only His name, it is also who He is, so how could I doubt that He will come through for me! I also have all of Scripture to show me that He is always victorious! He’s never lost one battle, so why would He start losing now, in my case, when I’m His Beloved Daughter? He wouldn’t!
Can I encourage you for a minute? Every giant not only must come down in your life, it will! Because He’s never lost one battle, and He won’t stop now! You don’t need that “some place else relief” because He’s saying, “I am enough!” The cry of our heart needs to be, “Jireh, You are enough!
When that truth becomes reality, I can relax and enjoy my K-dramas for entertainment, rather than to fill a romantic need in my life. I can shop because I enjoy it and not for retail therapy. I can have cheesecake because it’s good and not because Boaz is taking too long. I think you get my point! None of those things I mentioned are wrong unless I use them as a substitute for God's power in my life.
When I researched that word, burdensome, a bit more, I realized that it’s the same word used in Revelation 16:2 to describe the torment that people who took the mark of the beast would go through. It’s also the same word used in Genesis 18:20 to describe the sin of the people of Sodom & Gomorrah. WOW! Why would we ascribe a word like that to His commandments?
Today, if you are feeling burdened by one or more of His commandments, I want to encourage you to look at the thing / things you are using to “unburden” yourself. If you’re single, is it living vicariously through the romances of others or is it outright sexual relationships? If you’re overworked and exhausted, does staying home and binge-watching Netflix really make you feel better, or is that making things worse? Try following His command by fighting the fatigue and going to church. You’ll feel more energized and ready to face the week. Do you suffer from a medical condition, and fear keeps creeping in. How are you self-medicating? I’m not talking about your doctor prescribed medication (please keep taking that), but the thing you do to take your mind off of your condition? For some people, it’s the thing they DON’T DO. Like NOT TAKING THEIR MEDICATION. That thing you are not doing becomes the burden. For some, it’s retail therapy or Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey. For others, it’s drugs or alcohol. Think about it. Your FAITH in God to help you through, heal you, or deliver you has waned, so you do those things to make you feel better, but you end up feeling worse. We blame the command, but it’s actually our lack of FAITH and our “some place else relief” that keep us burdened. I know this is true, not just because He told me which is reason enough, but because when I finally get a clue and go back to Him in repentance, I literally feel the chains fall off and the feeling of freedom is amazing!
GOD: "My commands are not burdensome."
YOU: "Really God?"
GOD: "Yes, Really! Trust Me!"