Take Your Burdens to the Lord in Prayer - All The LORD is near Daily Devotionals for 2024

Let your requests be made known to God.
Philippians 4:6

Take Your Burdens to the Lord in Prayer
We live in a world where sorrow abounds. This has always been its state since sin came into the world. There cannot be sin without sorrow. And until sin is driven out from the world it is vain for anyone to suppose he can escape sorrow. Some, without doubt, have a larger cup of sorrow to drink than others. But few are to be found who live very long without sorrows or cares of one sort or another. Our bodies, our property, our families, our children, our relations, our friends, our neighbors, our worldly callings—each and all of these are fountains of care. Sicknesses, deaths, losses, disappointments, partings, separations, ingratitude, slander, all these are common things. We cannot get through life without them. Some day they will find us out.

The greater our affections, the deeper are our afflictions; and the more we love, the more we have to cry. And what is the best way to acquire cheerfulness in such a world as this? How will we get through this valley of tears with the least pain? I know no better way than the habit of taking everything to God in prayer. This is the clear advice that the Bible gives, both in the Old Testament and the New. What does God say? .

The only way to be really happy in such a world as this is to be ever casting all our cares on God. It is the attempt of carrying their own burdens that so often makes believers sad. If they will only tell their troubles to God, He will enable them to bear them. If they are resolved to keep them to themselves, they will find one day that the very grasshopper is a burden (Eccl. 12:5).

J. C. Ryle

Are we weak and heavy-laden, cumbered with a load of care?
Precious Savior, still our refuge—take it to the Lord in prayer.

J. M. Scriven