Self: The Greatest Burden
The greatest burden we have to carry in life is self, and we must hand ourselves and our inward experiences over to God's care and keeping.
Mary Wilder Tileston emphasizes the burden of self as the greatest challenge in life, urging listeners to surrender themselves, along with their weaknesses, temptations, and inward struggles, to God's care. By entrusting God with their innermost experiences and complexities, individuals can find comfort, guidance, and freedom from bondage and darkness. Tileston highlights the importance of handing over one's burdens to God, who uniquely understands and can manage each person according to His wisdom and love.
Text
The troubles of my heart are enlarged: Oh, bring Thou me out of my distresses.
--PSALMS 25:17
Low at His feet lay thy burden of carefulness,
High on His heart He will bear it for thee,
Comfort thy sorrows, and answer thy prayerfulness,
Guiding thy steps as may best for thee be.
--J. S. B. MONSELL
THE greatest burden we have to carry in life is self. The most difficult thing we have to manage is self. Our own daily living, our frames and feelings, our especial weaknesses and temptations, and our peculiar temperaments,--our inward affairs of every kind,--these are the things that perplex and worry us more than anything else, and that bring us oftenest into bondage and darkness. In laying off your burdens, therefore, the first one you must get rid of is yourself. You must hand yourself and all your inward expe.riences, your temptations, your temperament, your frames and reelings, all over into the care and keeping of your God, and leave them there. He made you and therefore He understands you, and knows how to manage you, and you must trust Him to do it.
--HANNAH WHITALL SMITH
Sermon Outline
- The Burden of Self
- Laying Off Your Burdens
- God's Care and Keeping
- God knows how to manage you and your inward affairs
- You must trust Him to do it
Key Quotes
“The greatest burden we have to carry in life is self.” — Mary Wilder Tileston
“Low at His feet lay thy burden of carefulness, High on His heart He will bear it for thee,” — Mary Wilder Tileston
Application Points
- We must hand ourselves and our inward experiences over to God's care and keeping.
- We must trust God to manage us because He made us and understands us.
- When we trust God to manage us, we are freed from bondage and darkness.