How to Identify Your Divine Burden

Monday we introduced the idea that you’re blessed with a burden. Today we’ll look at how to identify your divine burden (props to Craig Groeschel and LifeChurch.tv for his sermon on this issue).

Identifying your divine burden is as easy as answering three simple questions:

1. What breaks your heart? What is it that, when you see a certain group of people hurting, or a certain situation that isn’t right, your heart just wells up and becomes heavy? You’re overwhelmed with the truth, “This just isn’t right! This just isn’t fair!” Look at the lives at Nehemiah (Nehemiah 1:1-4) and Jesus (Mark 6:34) and you’ll see that their hearts were broken by the burden placed on them.

2. What makes you angry? Now, a lot of things make you angry. But I’m not talking about pet peeves. I’m not talking about someone talking on their cell phone in the middle of a movie or another invitation to join LinkedIn in your email inbox. I’m talking about what makes you righteously angry. Something in your heart that says, “I know this makes God angry, so it makes me angry.” If you read the story of Moses (Exodus 2:11-12) and Jesus (Mark 11:15-17), you’ll see that their burden caused them to become righteously angry.

3. What do you care about that others don’t? What is it that stirs a passion within you, and you can’t quite seem to understand why everyone else isn’t as passionate as you? Now, I’m not talking about your favorite sports team. I’m talking about a cause, an injustice, something important in the world that you want to preserve or fix. For some it may be the environment. You’re all about the environment, you’re passionate about it. For some it may be social justice. The fact that there are still 27 million slaves in the world today stirs you to no end, and you want to do something about it. What do you care about that others don’t? The story of David and Goliath starts with a burden placed on David to honor the name of God (1 Samuel 17:26). Jesus himself was driven by a burden that others didn’t care about (Mark 3:1-6).

If you can answer these three questions, you’ll be well on your way to identifying your divine burden.

QUESTION: What’s your divine burden?