Coming Home: A New Way to Respond to Our Burdens

Episode 10: Coming Home: A New Way to Respond to Our Burdens

This is the final episode of the year, what a blessing this season has been for me and I hope to you also as we have walked through so many topics and truths to equip us in disputing discouragement and seeking abundant life we have through Christ.

Today, I want to share something that the Lord has been teaching me through both my personal journey and the journeys of the many brave souls I have the honor to walk alongside.

Something I do at the end of every year is look back through my journal entries and find themes and patterns in verses and prayers. Based on these findings, I set an intention for the coming year, to be grounded in those truths as a new season begins.

At the start of 2021, I found that a major theme in my life was resting in the presence of God. This learning came from various sources and the Spirit’s leading, but the one passage of scripture repeated over and over again in my journal entries was Psalm 27.

“One thing have I asked of the Lord,
that will I seek after:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord
and to inquire[c] in his temple.” Verse 4

With this intention and assurance, to ask and seek, to pray and practice, to dwell and simply remind my soul to be with God no matter what I begin my journey into 2021. My prayer became: whatever, wherever, whenever - I want to dwell with the Lord forever. Little did I know that several unforeseeable challenges both internal and external would test this newly forming practice and position in my heart.

One final practice:

Let’s do this together. If you have a journal or want to come back to this when you have time to sit with it and reflect, I recommend taking time to write these things out and see them visually or talk them out with a friend or therapist.

1. Starting with this question: What are my burdens? List the things that are present in your heart, your world, your relationships.

Here are some examples: Friendships, Discouragement, Specific sins, Loss, Change, Trauma /pain

2. Now draw a second column on the right of this list, write your needs for each of these burdens.

Here are some examples:
Friendships = I need belonging
Discouragement = I need value. Direction, inspiration
Specific sins = I need intimacy, connection, relief
Loss = I need comfort
Change = I need safety, provision
Trauma /pain = I need healing, rest, comfort

3. Now, take each need: Belonging, volume, intimacy, etc - and look to scripture for responses to these needs.

We are conditioned to think that the things of this world that were never meant to satisfy us would fill us. Yet, in our returning, again and again, we are empowered to wait for the day when our king will come to us again, and our joy will never again be taken from us!

So, dear brothers and sisters,

I encourage you to come home, daily, hours, moment my moment, and renew your vision and focus. Let us ask for the Lord, to be with him, to dwell with him, and bring our every need to him.

Praying for you, thankful for you, and excited for the journey to come in 2022!

Whenever, whatever, wherever, let us remember to come home!

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