Kingdom of Performance:
It was just another day in the Kingdom of Performance. The man was getting ready to climb into the shower to prepare for another day of hard work and a busy schedule. As he stripped off his shirt and caught a glimpse of his shoulder in the mirror he noticed something he’d never seen before. A huge heavy lump had attached itself to his left side. He’d never noticed it before. Yesterday it wasn’t there, nor was it there the day before or was it? As he turned on the water to the shower he noticed the heaviness of this lump. “Had this lump started as a chip or a bump” the man asked himself? As he continued to examine the foreign object perched on his shoulder he remembered when he had taken it on. “How had this lump gotten so big?” As he pondered the subject of beginnings he thought back to when it started. Back then it seemed to fit. In the beginning it was just a small thing and felt so right. What had happened? When had this little burden become so important, so much a part of his life, so connected to him that now it seemed to have taken over?
The prophet Isaiah says in chapter 58:9
If you take away the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness, if you extend your soul to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted soul, then your light shall dawn in the darkness and your darkness shall be as the noonday.
Each one of us needs relationship with God in order to determine which burdens we are to take on. And when we take on a burden, it is never ours alone. We are to cast them back on His shoulders. When you live in the Kingdom of Performance this is not an easy thing to do.
