Adult Responsibilities and the Grace of God
Copyright Shea Oakley
All Rights Reserved
It is sometimes easy to feel overwhelmed by the responsibilities we face in life as adult Christians. Most of us have a day-job to hold down and perform during our working hours and sometimes beyond. Add to that participating in a marriage, taking care of children or elderly parents, maintaining friendships and fulfilling our ministry responsibilities (all of which we know should be done “as on to the Lord”) and it can begin to seem like too much.
Much is said in the church today about “burn-out”. In this second decade of the 21st century we are beginning to understand the toll that is often being taken on us denizens of the hyper-kinetic Western-world. In a society where “multi-tasking” is still seen as a desirable skill some of us are beginning to think of it as more of a curse.
That said Christians are also aware that our Lord never said life in any era of human history prior to the Eschaton was going to be easy. We also know that while some of the tasks we feel saddled with are not God-given responsibilities many are and we cannot shirk them without sinning against both Him and those who rely on us. The bottom line is that our adult responsibilities are many and difficult and simply cannot be avoided.
Possibly the best solution to the stress that devolves from all that is truly expected of us is to learn to trust in God’s faithfulness to supernaturally enable us to meet those expectations. So many times in my own life I have felt that I could not continue to handle all of the demands I felt were being made on me. My flesh told me that I was either drowning or soon would drown. The result was intense anxiety, an anxiety that came from trusting in my “worst case scenario” thinking rather than on the faithfulness of God. But over the years I have at least partially come to agree with what C.S. Lewis once said; that “that which is necessary is always possible.” I have found this to be a sound statement. If God has truly called me to do something he will always supply the grace necessary to get that something done, no matter what else may be impacting my life at any given moment.
This may seem to some like a spiritual oversimplification of the complexities and challenges of modern life. Perhaps, however it is a biblical one. The Scripture tells us in more than one place that His grace is sufficient for anything He allows us to face in this life. In the end we can either cave-in to the perceived impossibility of carrying a truly God-given load or we can trust Him to help us successfully carry it.
By all means simplify your life when you can and shed the tasks that you are truly sure are ones God never meant you to take on. But for the real burdens that a godly life requires us to shoulder try to remember that He never gives us more than we can handle with His help. It may not always feel that way, this is true, but He knows our limitations much better than we do and he will never suffer His children to be crushed under the burden a load that he, Himself, has given us to carry.