In leadership, we many times become exhausted due to the weight of what we are carrying and try in our own strength to hold on our shoulders the responsibility of the ministry ourselves. The weight of people, finances, friendships, carrying “one another’s burdens,” in our own strength instead of intentionally giving the burden of the weight over to the Lord. We think that we can in our own strength carry it better than the Lord can. Let me tell you that eventually, this will crush us. The Bible says in Hebrews 4:3 that His works were completed and finished before the foundation of the earth and they are finished “through us.”
We have to let go and enter the rest by pressing into God. How? By casting all our burdens on Him, 1 Peter 5:6-7 and learn to enter into His rest. Part of entering the rest is by forgiving and rolling every other care onto Jesus.
God wants to recreate and renew our Spirit, Soul and Body restoring them to the creation order He has intended before the foundation of the world. Our spirits have been redeemed, our souls are being restored and our bodies are healed.
One of the most helpful things in this past time for me was to give Jesus the parts of my soul and heart which were torn apart. Torn apart for many different reasons, but broken it was. I heard a message from someone whom inspired me to go through and search my heart, intentionally giving Jesus each and every hurt, bad memory, rejection, fear, defeat, etc and ask Him to restore my soul. After giving and rolling all these things over to Jesus I began to ask the ministering spirits as seen in Hebrews 1:14 to come and minister to me, my spirit, soul and body, this heir of salvation.
I started with just a few things that were at the forefront of my mind and then it was as if an onion peeled until I felt like I was literally getting lighter and lighter, floating instead of feeling like a heavy laden sad leader. I am not new to counseling and inner healing, however I came to the realization that as leaders, because we work so closely with people, we have a very high chance of getting hurt and we have to most likely forgive a lot more than the average person.
I am not new to counseling and inner healing, however I came to the realization that as leaders, because we work so closely with people, we have a very high chance of getting hurt and we have to most likely forgive a lot more than the average person.
Jesus says 70 times 7!!! There are times as we will pray with people, hearing their sad or happy stories and forget to roll that back over to the Lord when we are finished. There are times when a brother or a sister have betrayed us and we have literal holes in our backs from the wounding and the energy that we should be using for loving our King is being zapped out of us like a leaking faucet. If we stop going to the Lord and don’t turn these wounds over to Him, it opens the door for a defeated life and that is not God’s plan for us! Jeremiah 29:11 states “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.”
As we cast all these cares upon our loving Lord we are humbling ourselves! Jesus can understand each and every situation as He went through the worst of them even unto death. When we hold on to the “cares” it is actually pride, thinking that we can do a better job then our Lord. So will take time today to lay aside all that so easily besets me and cast all my worries, fears, concerns, hurts onto my Jesus for He carried them for me 2000 years ago and He cares for me now!