The Sacred Division: Why Your Daily Work and Your Divine Vision Need Different Shoulders
A Personal Word from Harold, in Akasia
The morning air in Akasia carries a specific crispness, a clean slate scent before the Pretoria sun asserts its authority. Sitting here, with the distant hum of life from Kgabo Lodge—where our community will soon gather for the Friends of the Market to celebrate local artisans and their handiwork—I am reflecting on a different kind of work. It is the work of the soul, a labour often misunderstood in our striving, suffering land. We are a nation carrying immense weight. We feel it in the shock that follows news of a mass shooting at a hostel near our city, precious lives, even that of a three-year-old child, snatched by violence. We feel it in the complex tensions that simmer in our politics. We feel it in the private anxieties of parents at events wondering, “How do I give my child the best chance to succeed in life?” In such a climate, a profound spiritual truth becomes our lifeline: there is a critical, God-ordained difference between a burden and a load.
A burden is the overwhelming, prophetic weight of a divine calling—a vision for your life, your family, or your community that is so vast it crushes your human capacity. It is the “why” that feels impossible. A load, however, is the daily, disciplined responsibility of obedience—the “what” and the “how” of today. It is the faithful work you are equipped to handle. To confuse these is to live in either paralysed despair or frenetic burnout. The Scripture’s command is our liberation: “Cast your burden on the Lord, and He shall sustain you” (Psalm 55:22), while we are to “carry each other’s loads” (Galatians 6:2,5) and faithfully bear our own.
The Anatomy of a Burden vs. The Muscle of a Load
Let us define our terms with biblical precision, for confusion here is a strategic error of the soul.
A Burden (massa in Hebrew, often implying a prophetic oracle or a heavy load) is sovereignly imposed by God. It is the vision that terrifies you with its scale—the calling to rebuild broken walls in a community ravaged by crime, the promise of a restoration that seems laughable amid present decay. It is the weight of intercession for a nation whose headlines break your heart. This weight has a singular purpose: to drive you to your knees and onto the shoulders of God. It is God’s megaphone, as C.S. Lewis noted, to rouse a world deaf to its need for Him. You were never meant to carry it. You are meant to cast it.
A Load (phortion in Greek, meaning a pack or a task) is personally taken up in discipline. It is the daily act of showing up: preparing that meal, finishing that report, speaking with kindness to a colleague, studying the Word, praying for your neighbour, teaching your child right from wrong. It is the “training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16) that Scripture provides. This is the sphere of your stewardship and your strength, developed through the consistent “discipline of the Lord” which proves you are His child (Hebrews 12:5-7).
The Critical Distinction
· Source: Burden = Divine. Load = Daily.
· Purpose: Burden = To compel dependence on God. Load = To develop character and faithfulness in you.
· Carrier: Burden = Christ. Load = You (empowered by Christ).
· Outcome of Misplacement: Carrying the burden yourself leads to crushing despair. Casting your load to God leads to irresponsible passivity.
The South African Confusion: Prosperity Gospel and Perseverance
Here in our African context, we face a particular distortion that blurs this sacred line. It is the pervasive whisper of the prosperity gospel, a “messy Christianity” that has disfigured the doctrine of God across our continent. This error performs a deadly swap: it repackages the burden—the costly, overwhelming call to take up your cross—as a load you can manage with enough faith, confession, and seed offering. It promises that if you just discipline yourself to believe harder, give more, and claim it boldly, the overwhelming vision of health, wealth, and breakthrough will be carried by your spiritual performance.
This is a cruel heresy. It takes Christ’s exclusive burden-bearing work on the cross and places it back on your weary shoulders. It turns the yoke that is meant to be easy and light (Matthew 11:30) into a transactional contract you can never fulfil. When the breakthrough doesn’t come, the message implies it is your load-carrying discipline that has failed, not your understanding of the burden. This is not the gospel. It is a baptized form of old superstitions, where the preacher becomes the new witchdoctor and your faith becomes a magic charm.
The true gospel declares: “Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). The rest is for your soul from the burden of sin, law, and impossible striving. He then says, “Take my yoke upon you… my yoke is easy and my burden is light”. The yoke is the load of daily discipleship—a perfect fit, shared with Him, empowering you for the good works He prepared in advance.
A Logical Defence: The Argument from Sustenance
Let me present a clear, logical defence for this division, anticipating a common objection.
· Premise 1: God is sovereign, all-wise, and loving (Isaiah 40:28, 1 John 4:8).
· Premise 2: A loving, wise God does not give His children tasks designed to destroy them without providing the means to accomplish them.
· Premise 3: Human beings are finite, physically and emotionally breakable creatures (Psalm 103:14-16).
· Premise 4: Some divine callings (burdens) are, by their revealed scope, inherently beyond human finite capacity (e.g., saving a nation, atoning for sin).
· Conclusion: Therefore, a loving, wise, sovereign God must provide a means to sustain His children through these burdens that does not rely on finite human capacity
Objection Anticipated: “But doesn’t God call us to do impossible things? Doesn’t that require us to carry the impossible?”
Response: This fails to distinguish between the ownership of the vision and the execution of the daily steps. God calls Abraham to father a nation—an impossible burden. God’s promise carries it (Genesis 15). Abraham’s load is to walk from Ur to Canaan, to circumcise his household, to believe God’s word today. The burden of the vision’s fulfilment rests on the integrity of the Promise-Giver. Our load is faithful obedience to the next step. The moment Abraham tried to carry the burden of producing the heir through Hagar, he created an Ishmael—a work of the flesh, not the Spirit.
The Akasia Application: Faithfulness in the Field of Your Feet
So, what does this mean for us, here and now? It means your calling is not to single-handedly end gender-based violence in South Africa. That is a national burden we must cast on the Lord in prayer. Your load is to raise your sons to respect women, to intervene if you see harassment, to support a local shelter. Your calling is not to instantly reconcile the deep racial and political fractures of our nation. That is a sovereign work of God. Your load is to pursue a genuine friendship with a neighbour who does not look like you, to listen more than you speak, to bear the daily cost of forgiveness in your own heart.
The news will scream with burdens—of crime, corruption, and conflict. Do not internalise them as your load to fix. Cast them on Christ, the only one who can bear the weight of the world’s sin and sorrow. Then, ask the Holy Spirit—the essential power for any true apologetic or practical work—what your load is for today. Is it to phone that lonely relative? To do your job with excellence as unto the Lord? To read His Word and pray for your leaders?
Do not surrender the daily discipline of your load to the paralysis of the world’s burden. And do not inflate the importance of your daily load to the level of a messianic burden. Carry your pack. Cast your vision on Him. In this sacred division lies your peace, your perseverance, and your powerful, steady testimony in a weary land. Be faithful in the small things. Trust God with the impossible ones. He is more than able.
Comments
Post a Comment