I have noticed a pattern in life.  It is a little like the washing machine wash, spin, rinse, repeat.  We tend to go through this pattern in life where we pile up on the anxieties of life on our back.  We carry the weight of our family, we take the phone call from our friend that needs a little help, we take on extra tasks at work, we go to events to keep people happy, we help out at our kid’s school so we don’t look like bad parents, we help out at church, we coach our kids little league, we help a friend in need, and we just keep adding things on and on until it is exhausting.

We take on and we take on until we get to a place where we have reached our limit.  I have had enough.  Too much.  We yell at the dog, the kid, our spouse, God, and ourselves.  We push ourselves so far that our bodies begin to break down.  Emotionally we break down and start to cry, physically our bodies break down and get sick, spiritually we break down and become critical of others wondering why they are doing more, where is so and so, why are people taking advantage of me, and we are emotionally exhausted.  We finally get to a place where we blow up and say, “Too much.”  Then we begin to jettison everything from our life that we can.  We get rid of all those responsibilities in the hopes that we can feel better.  We have reached our limit and we can’t do anything else.

Then, after a period of rest where we take 2-4 months “off”, withdrawal from activity and society we will begin to take on responsibilities and eventually it will be too many responsibilities and we will go through that same cycle over and over.  We will do this 3-4 times a year.  This is called pride.

We tell ourselves we can do it.  We can carry the marriage, the friendships, our jobs, the finances, our spiritual life, and even when our knees begin to buckle we think we just need to try harder.  We get knee braces and tell ourselves things like, “Don’t quit.  Quitters never win and winners never quit.  When the going gets tough the tough get going.  We push ourselves and when we do this we are carrying everything ourselves.

Scripture calls us to cast all of our anxieties on to Him because He can carry them.  He is strong enough, great enough, wise enough, compassionate enough and instead of responding in pride trying to carry everything we can respond in humility and see that He is so much greater.  We can’t carry it all.  We can’t be the friend, worker, spouse, follower of Christ that we want to be and we can’t do it so instead of carrying it ourselves we need to see He is so much better.