Release The Burden

I’ve become a passionate student of digital photography.  When I was able to purchase a full-frame camera and a subscription to Photoshop and Lightroom my life changed forever.  Many of my spare moments are spent taking and editing pictures.  But what if there wasn’t a place to share these photos. If I couldn’t post them and see how many likes or comments they receive.  Would I still spend as much time creating these pictures?

As a musician I’ve learned a lot by observing the changes in myself and those around me over the last 20-30 years.  When you are young and have a dream you are willing to make great sacrifices to achieve it. You take lessons, attend workshops, work into the wee hours in a recording studio.  You travel and stay in less than ideal circumstances because you have a dream…one day if I work hard enough and smart enough I’ll become a great musician. I’ll be able to buy my mom that car she always wanted or perhaps get the dream house for my family.

But then you turn 50.  You may have become well known but you aren’t rich.  Now what? Do I keep paying for the lessons? Do I keep making the phone calls to attempt to get the bookings?  Do I keep writing songs and making recordings or was that only if I could become rich and famous?

Part of healing is learning what is important.  Perhaps the best thing you can do today is pause, disconnect and figure out what really serves you well.  You may discover you have been putting a lot of energy into things that don’t create a better place for you or the ones you love.

Jesus was angry with the religious leaders of his day who made religion into a yoke that made life burdensome for others.  Yet, they were quick to make sure they altered there beliefs when it came to their own benefit. In Matthew 23 he rebukes them saying:

Now Jesus turned to address his disciples, along with the crowd that had gathered with them. “The religion scholars and Pharisees are competent teachers in God’s Law. You won’t go wrong in following their teachings on Moses. But be careful about following them. They talk a good line, but they don’t live it. They don’t take it into their hearts and live it out in their behavior. It’s all spit-and-polish veneer.

“Instead of giving you God’s Law as food and drink by which you can banquet on God, they package it in bundles of rules, loading you down like pack animals. They seem to take pleasure in watching you stagger under these loads, and wouldn’t think of lifting a finger to help. Their lives are perpetual fashion shows, embroidered prayer shawls one day and flowery prayers the next. They love to sit at the head table at church dinners, basking in the most prominent positions, preening in the radiance of public flattery, receiving honorary degrees, and getting called ‘Doctor’ and ‘Reverend.’

“Don’t let people do that to you, put you on a pedestal like that. You all have a single Teacher, and you are all classmates. Don’t set people up as experts over your life, letting them tell you what to do. Save that authority for God; let him tell you what to do.

Matt. 23:1-9 The Message Bible