Tag Archives: endure hard times

October 16, 2025 · 5:30 AM

Sharing Your Burden

How heavy is the burden you’re carrying right now? We all carry burdens with us. Freedictionary.com lists these as synonyms of burden: trouble, care, worry, trial, weight, responsibility, stress, strain, anxiety, sorrow, grievance, affliction, onus, albatross, millstone, encumbrance. All these things wear us down, make us tired and cause us not to move forward. We carry them inside and try not to let anyone know that they’re weighing us down. Somehow we’ve come to believe it’s a badge of honor to bear these burdens. It’s a way to show others were stronger than they believe. The truth is that you weren’t meant to carry these heavy burdens that distract us from our purpose by ourselves.

I love Jesus’ promise in Matthew 11:28. He said, “Are you weary, carrying a heavy burden? Come to me. I will refresh your life, for I am your oasis” (TPT). One version refers to this burden as a yoke which would wrap around an animals neck to help them plow. Jesus’ metaphor here is symbolic of a yoke that would hold two animals. He wants to help you carry that burden. We’re even directed as believers in Galatians 6:2 to help each other carry their burdens. In each case, it requires the burden bearer to seek that help. When a burden is shared, the weight is cut in half. Quit believing the lies that it’s yours to carry alone and that no one else cares. God is available to help you and has placed people around you to help you.

Jesus continued in Matthew 11:29, “Simply join your life with mine. Learn my ways and you’ll discover that I’m gentle, humble, easy to please. You will find refreshment and rest in me.” It takes us joining our life with His and submitting to His yoke rather than our own. To me, that’s the hard part here, and in my mind it doesn’t always make sense. Yielding to Christ’s burden, rather than our own, and trusting Him with ours, is an act of faith. It’s trusting God to take care of something we’ve taken ownership of whether we were meant to or not. Psalm 68:19 says, “Praise the Lord, who carries our burdens day after day; he is the God who saves us” (GNT). God is ready and waiting for you to trust Him enough to go to Him and let Him help you day by day. Start by praying and saying out loud that you submit to His burden and need His help. Then share it with a trusted friend.

Photo by Leo_Visions on Unsplash

Throwback Thursday is a feature I’m using to help build some margin into my schedule to pursue other ventures. Each Thursday I’ll be bringing you a previously written devotional that still speaks encouragement to us from God’s Word.

2 Comments

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as bear one anothers burdens, bible study on, bible verses on, burdens, comfort for hard times, Devotional, devotional on, endure hard times, enduring hard times, everyone goes through hard times, share your burden, what does the bible say about

September 29, 2025 · 5:32 AM

Next Level Growth

I’ve the last couple of weeks I’ve heard different people say that God gives His toughest battles to His strongest soldiers. Another phrase I’ve heard quite a bit is that God will never give you more than you can bear. At first they sound great, but the more I think about them, neither are biblical. God does give battles to people to prove their strength. He allows us to go through tough times to create endurance and to build strength. Also, if He only gave us what we could handle, there would be no need for dependence on Him. He knows what is ahead and what preparations we need now for it. Tough times increase our strength, endurance, character, faith and more. That’s why James says we should count it all joy.

In Genesis we read the story of Joseph. He was a teenager when God gave him a dream of the future. He was not one of God’s toughest soldiers when his brothers threw him into a pit and sold him into slavery. He wasn’t the strongest when he was wrongfully accused and thrown into prison. Being forgotten there for years might have been more than he could bear. What we do know is that God used that period of time as a training ground to produce the person he needed to be in order to handle the mantle of leadership. He went from spoiled brat to understanding God’s plan in that period. He learned his lesson and grew so much that he didn’t seek revenge on his brothers. Instead He saw God’s providence.

Deuteronomy 8:3 says, “He made you go hungry, and then he gave you manna to eat, food that you and your ancestors had never eaten before. He did this to teach you that you must not depend on bread alone to sustain you, but on everything that the Lord says” (GNT). God’s desire for us is that we would learn to trust Him instead of ourselves in every situation. He is our source and our sustainer. It is His strength that is perfect in our weakness. It is His grace that is sufficient for what we are going through. If you’re going through a hard time, it’s not because you’re His toughest soldier. It’s because there is more that He’s leading you to, more that He’s going to accomplish through you and another level for you to get to. Trust in His strength and not yours for that next level growth.

Photo by Tobias Rademacher on Unsplash

A Place Of Abundance

When we go through hard times, we all want to know why. What did we do to deserve it? Why does it have to last so long? Did God abandon us? Has He forgotten us? How much more can we endure before we break? These are all questions we think about when we go through the fire of trials. It’s been my experience that it’s not until well after that I begin to get any insight into it, if at all. So why does God allow us to face unbearable conditions?

In a word, it’s transformational. There can be no transformation in our lives without hard times. They mold us, purify us, and move us from one place to another. As my nephew says, “No pressure, no diamond.” The problem is, we want the diamond without the pressure. We want the transformation without the trial. We want strength without having to endure heavy lifting. We want things now instead of later, but that’s not how God works, nor is it how we were designed.

In Psalm 66:10-12 it says, “You have tested us, O God; you have purified us like silver. You captured us in your net and laid the burden of slavery on our backs. Then you put a leader over us. We went through fire and flood, but you brought us to a place of great abundance” (NLT). It was God who tested them, put a heavy burden on them, and sent them through the fire and flood. He does the same to us today. It’s not fun, it hurts, and it’s hard to get through at times, but God has a plan.

As the psalmist wrote, He’s purifying us in order to bring us to a place of abundance. You can’t get to the abundance without going through the purification of fire. When those times come remember that if you will endure it, God is working it out for your good. He’s bringing you to a place that you could never get to without having gone through it. Also remember his promise in Isaiah 42:3, “When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown. When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you.” He’s there with you in these times and won’t let them crush you. Hang in there, abundance is coming.

2 Comments

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as abundance, bible, Christianity, daily devotion, Devotional, difficult times, dont quit, endurance, endure hard times, give up, god refines us, God's promises, hang in there, hard times, healing, help, hope, silver refined, walk through fire, walk through the fire i will be there, why do i have to go through this, why do we go through hard times