What do you do when hard times come?  How do you handle a hardship?  How do you bear a burden?  The Psalmist gives us some guidelines to help answer these questions.

     MAKE A CHOICE.  We can't choose what comes into our lives, but we can choose how we will react to what comes.  When something that seems unpleasant comes our way, we often see it as a burden.  And, since it is a burden, we groan under the load and complain about the experience.

     But there is another way.  The word translated "burden" is literally, "that which He has given you".  It could be translated "gift".  What a difference there is when by faith we choose to see whatever has come as a gift rather than as a burden.  For when we see it as a gift, something God has given us, it becomes something meant to bless.

     We can choose which it will be.

     ACCEPT AN INVITATION.  The second thing we can do is to accept the invitation to cast this thing upon the Lord.  The word translated "cast" is an active word.  It speaks of giving it back to God.  And this can be done only as we surrender ourselves to His love and His plan for our lives.  If we believe that our Heavenly Father is involved in everything that comes into our lives, we must trust Him in whatever He wants to do.  We cast ourselves upon the Lord first.  Everything else goes with us.

     DISCOVER A SECRET.  God does not promise to take the thing away.  That is what we want most of the time, but that is not what God promises to do.  In fact, if He took it away, He couldn't accomplish the thing for which He sent or allowed it.  No, the secret we discover is in the promise that when we choose to see it as a gift, and give it back to God, He will sustain us.  That word means to contain, and the picture I see is of a loving Father surrounding us with His arms of love, "containing" us with His strength.

     Perhaps you are in one of those difficult times when it seems a "burden" has come into your life.  May I encourage you, in the words of the Psalmist: "Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee".