Hand Over the Toilet Paper
“Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens” —Psalm 68:19, NIV.
Ninety-nine percent of the time, I absolutely REFUSE to make a second trip to unload anything (groceries, boxes, bags, random stuff, etc.) from the car to the house. Most of the time, I would rather load myself up with everything, arms burning from the weight, than walk back out to the car for a second trip.
Honestly, the other day, my dad couldn’t even see my face as I balanced toilet paper, paper towels, cereal boxes, and tissues stacked on top of each other, while both hands/arms were loaded down with detergent, grocery bags, and our paper bag of Firehouse Subs for dinner that night…Who needs arm day when you have grocery day?! (He offered to help; I am just determined (a.k.a. stubborn)). Anyone else?
Jokes aside, I think many of us do that with all of the other things we carry—worries, disappointments, fears, responsibilities, and circumstances that weigh heavily on our hearts and minds. Some of these may be temporary, while others seem to follow us from one season of life onto the next. Sometimes, we become so accustomed to carrying them that we hardly recognize just how much they are weighing us down.
But Psalm 68:19 reminds us of something that may comfort or convict: we were never expected to carry all of these things on our own.
This verse becomes even richer when we look at different translations. The NIV says that God “daily bears our burdens,” while the ESV says that he “daily bears us up.” The NLT offers this beautiful picture: “For each day he carries us in his arms.” Although these translations emphasize slightly different aspects of the original Hebrew text, they all point us toward the same glorious reality—God is not standing by and watching us struggle beneath the weight of all our circumstances—he is actively sustaining us through them.
DAILY!
Not occasionally. Not only when we have reached the absolute end of ourselves and the toilet paper is about to topple off the pile. Not just when we have exhausted every possible solution and finally remember to ask him for help (guilty!). He bears our burdens daily. His strength, help, and grace are not reserved for those extra difficult circumstances or moments of extraordinary need. They are continually available to us because he is continually present with us.
God takes a personal interest in the things that concern us. I think sometimes we convince ourselves that our problems are too insignificant to bring before him, or that we should be capable of handling certain things on our own. Maybe we worry that we have brought the same concern to him too many times, or that we should have figured out how to move past it by now. But the Bible gives no indication that God grows impatient with his children's burdens.
In fact, 1 Peter 5:7 says to cast “all your care upon him, for he cares for you” (NKJV). See the simplicity there? We are not told to determine which concerns are worthy of God’s attention or to hold on tighter to the smaller ones until they become serious enough to warrant his help. We are invited to cast all our cares on him.
And why? Because he cares for us. We can entrust ALL our burdens to him because he loves us. He takes a personal, affectionate interest in our lives, and the things that weigh heavily on our hearts matter to him. In their song, “Jesus Does,” We The Kingdom writes that Jesus “carries the pain of his children” (listen here). His heart breaks for us, because he loves us and hates to see us carry so much—he longs for us to give it all to him.
Psalm 55:22 offers a similar encouragement: “Cast your burden on the Lord, and He shall sustain you” (NKJV). God does not promise that we will never face difficulties or that every burden will disappear immediately when we bring it to him. But he does promise to sustain us through them. Sometimes his help comes through a change in our circumstances, and other times it comes through the strength, peace, and grace he provides while those circumstances remain unchanged. Either way, we are not expected to endure them apart from him.
In Psalm 68:19, God is described not only as the One who carries our burdens, but also as our Savior. His care for us is not limited to helping us manage the everyday difficulties of life. He is the very source of our rescue, our strength, and our continued sustenance. The same God who has saved us is the One who faithfully carries us through each day.
This reminds me of the way Jesus teaches us to pray in Matthew 6:11: “Give us today our daily bread.” Notice we are told to ask for what we need today. Not enough to sustain ourselves indefinitely, not a lifetime supply that would allow us to be entirely self-sufficient, not even a Costco-size bundle, but our daily bread. And in John 6:35, Jesus identifies himself as the “bread of life.” I love the connection between these passages because they remind us that God is not simply the provider of what sustains us; in Christ, he is our sustenance. We are invited to depend on him daily, trusting that he will provide today and remain faithful to provide tomorrow.
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30, NIV).
Jesus does not simply invite us to lay our burdens down and walk away without him. We don’t hand him the grocery pile and leave him to sort it out while we run more errands. He invites us to exchange the weight we have been carrying for a life of walking alongside him, learning from him, and resting in his care.
In Jesus’ time, a yoke was used to join animals together so that they could share the work of pulling a load. While this imagery was especially familiar to Jesus’ original audience, I think it still comforts us today. We are not invited to trade one exhausting responsibility for another. We don’t lay down our heavy yoke and pick up a heavier one. We are being invited into a relationship with the One who is gentle and humble in heart, whose leadership brings rest rather than the crushing weight of trying to sustain ourselves. He offers us his yoke, so the weight of our burdens will be lifted by shoulders much stronger than ours (no matter how much time you spend in the gym).
I am certainly guilty of bringing my burdens before the Lord, only to pick them right back up again as soon as I finish praying. I wonder how many of you can relate—we tell him we trust him, surrender our circumstances to him, and believe he can handle whatever we are facing. Then, about five minutes later, we are right back to worrying about the very thing we just entrusted to his care. (Again, surely I am not the only one!)
The invitation to cast our cares is so meaningful. To cast something is to release it from our own grasp—think of “casting” a line in fishing (that really dramatic slinging motion). We cannot fully entrust a burden to someone else while insisting we remain responsible for carrying its entire weight. At some point, trusting God requires us to loosen our grip on the things we have been holding so tightly and acknowledge that his strength is far greater than our own. In order to accept my dad’s help, I would have had to put something down, release my death grip on the detergent, and allow him to lift the toilet paper from my arms. Trusting God works just like that.
When I return to Psalm 68:19, I can’t help but think about the tenderness of that image from the NLT: “For each day he carries us in his arms.” Not only does he carry all the things that weigh us down, but he carries us. How personal and affectionate—it reminds me of the many times my dad (or mom) carried me from the car when I fell asleep on the ride (or pretended to fall asleep—an excellent game of “possum”). A parent holding a tired child doesn’t expect the child to somehow find enough strength to carry themselves, but simply gathers that child into loving arms and bears their weight.
We are children of a God who knows when we are weary, who understands the weight of what we carry, and who does not expect us to muster up the strength to endure everything on our own. His care for us is not distant or occasional—it is personal, faithful, and daily.
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6, NIV).
God wants to carry your toilet paper—cast it on him today.
bytaylormcgee
