I’ve been listening to Deacon Blue’s melancholy “Weight of the World” on repeat lately. Whether or not you’re also partial to this iconic, been-around-forever Scottish band (and honestly why would you not be!), I think we can all agree the sentiment rings true.
The world is heavy right now—and most of us are struggling under its weight.
We are carrying the weight of a pandemic and how to thrive, or at least survive, in the midst of it. Drastic changes to home and work dynamic; separation from family; anxiety over safety measures, school decisions, and of course our own health and that of our loved ones. And then there are the other weights: the bitter, divided political landscape, a looming presidential election, racial and social injustice and unrest, fires, storms, murder hornets…
It’s all just too much. The weight of the world is just too much to carry—alone.
But we’re not alone, are we? We have Jesus—who offers to carry that weight on our behalf (Matthew 11:28-30). To come alongside us and exchange our unbearable yoke for His. One that is lighter, easier, and allows us to breathe a little once more. The weight is still there, of course, but it isn’t our burden to carry.
If we choose it.
And as we look everyday at the confusion and pain and anger and worry that circles around us, infusing our every thought and breath with its chaotic noise, we must remember the truth that this will not last forever. It is temporal. It will fade. And one day, we will exchange its weight—“this light momentary affliction… for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen” (2 Corinthians 4:17-18).
And what joy and hope that truth brings in these difficult times.
The world may be heavy indeed, friends, but take heart, Jesus has already overcome it (John 16:33). So let’s stop struggling with the unbearable, unrealistic weight we are attempting to carry and place it as His feet instead, as we look with hope and anticipation to the eternal glory which is to come
