In awesome deeds of righteousness you answer us, O God of our salvation; you are the confidence of all the ends of the earth of those who are far away on the farthest sea
The weight of the world is a heavy burden to carry.
A friend said to me once during a USA presidential election that America, and much of the free world, is in a unique position in our ability to cast votes for our elected officials; historically, such as in the time of Jesus, the populace didn’t have much say in who led. Yet they were still required to go about their God-given commission, fulling His will. There are pros and cons to having so much to do…sometimes we lose track of where our sufficiency comes from, believing we can elect a savior into office rather than trusting fully in the one we’ve confessed as Lord.
There’s a similar situation with a subject I’ve been pondering lately: we were never really meant to carry the burdens on our hearts that we do. Man was not made to be privy to every scrap of suffering in every corner of the world. Historically, much of one’s worry went into the wellbeing of the tribe and/or local community…that was your sphere and that was what you focused on. Now, thanks to social and news media, you have not only that weight, but also the burden of knowing first, second, or third-hand the trouble that goes on throughout the world. The pain of everyone else’s tribe is heaped on your shoulders. We are constantly bombarded with the bloodied, destitute, anguished faces of nations our ancestors never even knew existed…and many of us carry their grief as if it were our own.
So what are we to do with that weight? What can we do? Certainly we can pray—and some argue that it’s good we have access to such a plethora of information so we do pray. But I would argue that often our capacity for knowledge outweighs the extent to which we engage in healthy degrees. In short, the most informed can often be the least peaceful, which is not something God desires for His people. There is a balance in being informed versus putting our peace to death, and I think many of us can speak for ourselves that we’ve far crossed that line.
So again…what do we do with the weight of the world we’ve accumulated? Well, I look at psalms like Psalm 65 and find peace piercing through. We must remember that in all the suffering we see, God is the deliverer. Christ is the Redeemer. God brings confidence and salvation through His righteousness. He brings these things near–at home, to us, our tribe, our community—and afar—to the ends of the earth, the farthest reaches, to the places we ache for but cannot reach ourselves.
Let’s walk in wisdom about how much we consume of the world’s struggles. And let’s be sure we offer up prayers daily for the circumstances we do and don’t know…for God to intervene and bring salvation to all.
