Cast thy burdens upon the LORD, and He shall sustain thee: He shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.

Psalms 55:22, KJV

Don't you hate wasting things? Maybe you bought something on sale that you couldn't return, only to find out that it didn't fit or you didn't need it. Or maybe you spent a lot of time on a project at work. You know the one. It was that project that was time consuming and difficult. You might have even knew that it was a waste of time going into it, and you would have told the boss just that if he had let you. But you persevered and got the project done, only to find it "scrapped" at the end because they didn't need it.

I remember a basketball tournament on a winter day in a distant town. I couldn't believe that they would risk the kids and the fans, for the roads were icy and the trip was miserable and a little dangerous. As we neared the town, we got the news that the games had been cancelled, and we had to turn back. So we had risked the weather and made that long drive for nothing, and those that had made it were not all that happy. It was just one big waste of time for nothing.

Things like these will drive us crazy, especially when they could have been prevented with a little forethought, and a little courtesy. Nobody likes to take unnecessary risk. Nobody likes to expend unnecessary effort. Nobody likes to spend money that is hard to come by when they didn't have too. In short, no one likes wasting important resources.

Oddly enough, one of the things we waste the most time, effort, and even concern on are things that are totally preventable. I don't even mean that the circumstances that we find ourselves in are preventable, but they way we react to them are. God has promised us that He will sustain us in hard times - that He will not allow the righteous to suffer in a manner that is not needed. Yet we often find ourselves doing that very thing. We suffer with worry. We suffer with a loss of peace. Sometimes we even suffer by having to put in extreme, yet unneeded effort and expense, all because we forget to do one simple thing:

We forget to cast our burdens on the LORD!

And by doing so, we keep these unmanageable loads all to ourselves. We carry such burdens as fear and angst and depression, all because we forgot (or maybe we never knew in the first place) that God does not want the righteous to suffer in unnecessary ways. So He determined long ago that He would handle those things that we could not be reasonably expected to take care of ourselves... if we would just let Him!

So, what kind of unnecessary burdens have you been trying to carry all by yourself? It may very well be that these burdens have crushed you to the point where your very faith in God has wavered at times. What a shame, and what a waste! God loves you and has promised that He will never allow you to even be tempted in a manner greater than you can bear, much less allow you to carry an unbearable burden. It's true that this life is a test, so He does allow us to be tested from time to time. But the tests and trials of life are never intended to become a crushing weight that we cannot bear, for God has promised us this:

He will never allow us to be tested to the point where it will move us away from Him. In fact, He has invited us to cast our burdens on Him, and that means we will grow closer to God, for you cannot hand a burden off to someone else to carry unless you are close enough to hand it over to them in the first place. 

Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time,

casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.

I Peter 5:6-7, NKJV

Have you been suffering under the heavy load of anxiety, fear or depression? Why not give your burden to the only One who can carry it, and cease to waste your time, efforts and emotions, straining under burdens that God has never wanted you to carry in the first place?