When the prophets Nahum, Habakkuk, and Malachi stood up to preach, they began with the words, “The burden of the Lord.”
That was a dead giveaway this was not going to be a sweet little devotional filled with funny stories and touching vignettes. The men of God were about to drop a heavy load from their hearts into the laps and onto the shoulders of their audiences.
It took me a long time laboring in the Lord’s vineyard to figure something out. The burden God gives His preacher for some problem, some people, or some cause is every bit as much a gift from Him as the blessings of salvation. And it becomes my starting place.
Starting place for what? I’m glad you asked.
The burden God gives you, pastor, is your beginning point for three things….
1. The vision God will give you for your work begins with a burden.
I like to think of the time we wrestle with a problem (i.e., the burden) as the equivalent of digging downward for the foundation of a mighty building. The deeper we dig–the more the problem burdens us, the longer we struggle with it, and the more it pains us–the greater will be the structure that eventually gets erected there.
You’ve seen the signs: “Watch this site. A new office building will be erected here.”
Well, post one of those signs on the burden God has given you: “Watch this site. A new visionary structure will go up here.”
What is your burden, pastor? What bothers you most in your community, your church, your world? What robs you of sleep at night and will not leave you alone?
–For Bill, a seminary student involved in our church, it was a run-down trailer park near the airport where he had spotted a number of needy and neglected children.