In Pilgrim’s Progress, Christian carried a heavy burden on his back. It weighed him down. It dogged his steps. Then there was the scene where he rolled his burden at the foot of the cross. 

Proverbs 16:3 says. “Commit your works to the Lord, and your thoughts will be established.” The word ‘commit’ is illustrated through a note in my Bible. “The picture is of a camel, burdened with a heavy load; when the load is to be removed, the camel kneels down, tilts far to one side, and the load rolls off.” We relinquish through prayer.

1 Peter 5:7 says, “Casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.” The Greek word for care is to divide the mind. The word denotes distractions, anxieties, burdens, and worries.”

2 Peter 1:3 says, “As His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue.” ALL means no exception. Cast your burdens at His feet. He already bore them on the cross. Isaiah 53:4.

Our brain’s limbic system files every event that we have ever gone through, with our recorded emotions. Description from the Cleveland Clinic: it is a group of interconnected brain structures that help regulate your emotions and behavior. It works together with other brain regions by processing your memory, thoughts, motivations, then tell your body how to respond.

That brings Proverbs 4:23 to the front. It says, “Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life.” Unresolved issues harbor emotional pain, remain buried, and are not registered in our conscious mind.

However, they continually seep into our thought processes. That is why we negatively react to something in our present that reminds us of a past event. The emotions are triggered which instantly activate our sympathetic nervous system ~ or fight, flight, freeze. 

It is essential to release things from our past. They only exist in our mind. No way to change them. However we can stop carrying their heavy emotional baggage. It is over. Our past is passed. Let it go and embrace your present.

I was thanking the Lord for who He is at all times, and this thought came. He is never disappointed in us. Why? He knows the thoughts of our hearts moment by moment. He never places expectations on us. Therefore He never has a broken expectation.

Unlike us, we get disappointed when the things we thought were going to happen didn’t. Do you have unfulfilled desires that have caused disappointment to lodge in your heart? A broken expectation causes emotional pain.

A broken expectation can crush our spirit. Proverbs 17:22 says, “A merry heart does good, like medicine, but a broken spirit dries up the bones.” Could this be a root of osteoporosis? Or perhaps bone on bone where the cartilage is dried up?

Proverbs 18:14 says, “The spirit of a man will sustain him in sickness, but who can bear a broken spirit?” This verse reminds me of Luke 4:18 in the Amplified. Jesus came to set the captives free. It says, “…to send forth as delivered those who are oppressed (who are downtrodden, bruised, crushed, and broken down by calamity).”

Hebrews 11:6 says that what pleases the Lord is our faith. Romans 14:23 ends with, “…whatever is not of faith is sin.” Therefore doing things to gain favor, be accepted, be noticed, seeking attention is all classified as self serving. 

Ephesians 6:6 says, “Not with eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but as bondservant of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart.” Colossians 3:17 says, “And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.”

Another aspect of pleasing the Lord is doing His will. 1 Thessalonians 5:18 is so clear in saying, “In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” Hebrews 13:21 says, “Make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight…”

Proverbs 16:7 says, “When a man’s ways please the Lord, He makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.” Troubling interpersonal relationships are the Lord’s tool for character development and transformation.

The Holy Spirit will check our spirit when our motives are to please ourselves, in order to look good in others eyes. Men pleasers have a ‘me-first’ demeanor and attitude. When I was in first grade, we had a coloring book called “Me-First” as an endeavor to teach us to share.

Philippians 2:3 says, “Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself.” Galatians 5:26 says, “Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.”

2 Timothy 2:24 says, “And a servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient.” Paul addressed himself and Timothy as bondservants of Jesus Christ in Philippians 1:1 . In Titus he used the title bondservant and an apostle.

Paul knew from the beginning of his conversion that he would suffer for the sake of Christ. In 2 Corinthians 11:23-33 he described what that looked like. 2 Corinthians 4:8 says, “We were hard-pressed on every side…perplexed…persecuted…struck down…” Let us labor for our Master with joy.

I had read through the book of Galatians twice. As I started again for my third time, the Holy Spirit stopped me at verse 10. It says, “For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ.”

As I read, “…do I seek to please men?” The Holy Spirit gave me this insight. When we seek to please ourselves, we are pleasing men. Hmm. What is a men pleaser? Someone who is self-centered. They think of themselves first.

There is an excellent picture of a servant’s role in Luke 17:7-10. The servant has worked all day plowing or tending sheep. I can imagine he is exhausted. Then he has to immediately serve his master. 

Verse 8 says, “…Prepare something for my supper, and gird yourself and serve me till I have eaten and drunk, and afterward you will eat and drink…”

1 Thessalonians 2:4 says, “…even so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God who tests our hearts.” The Lord knows our true motives.

Romans 9 is about Israel’s rejection. We can apply verse 20 to ourselves. It says, “But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, Why have you made me thus?”

2 Timothy 2:20 says that in a great house there are vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and of clay ~ some for honor and some for dishonor. Verse 21 says, “Therefore if anyone cleanses himself from the latter, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified and useful for the Master, prepared for every good work.”

Our progressive sanctification is the work of God’s pressure. His design is to remove the dross from our lives through our trials. Romans 5:3 Amplified says, “Moreover (let us also be full of joy now!) let us exult and triumph in our troubles and rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that pressure and affliction and hardship produce patient and unswerving endurance.”

Our trial’s pressures are designed to develop character. How is your attitude in your trials? Does it exemplify the Lord to those around you?

As we read God’s word, observing to do it, the Holy Spirit highlights truths He wants to work into our lives. Isaiah 32:17 says, “The work of righteousness will be peace, and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance forever.”

I like to think of ‘work’ as a wheel potterer. The dry clay has to be prepared before it can be formed into an object. Once water is worked into it, the saturated clay is malleable. Then the potter has to center it on the wheel which takes even pressure.

So it is with us. Our Potter must work the water of His word deep into every nook and cranny of our hearts. The unresolved issues are exposed as He works to center us upon Himself.

2 Corinthians 3:18 says, “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.” Romans 8:29 says that we are predestined, “…to be conformed to the image of His Son…”

Read the words about a young Yali man who accepted the Lord. “Dongla could never forget the day one of the kembu spirits had invaded his body years earlier, causing him to lose his sanity for several days. 

But now the Spirit of God, Creator of heaven and earth, was drawing him into a gentle fellowship of love that made his mind feel whole and pure in a way he had never experienced before.”

Romans 12:2 says that we are transformed by the renewing of our minds. Ephesians 4:22-23 described it as putting off and putting on. Verse 23 in the Amplified says, “And be constantly renewed in the spirit of your mind (having a fresh mental and spiritual attitude).”

The moment we are saved we are a new creation. However, the unresolved issues in our lives are not instantly eradicated. Our progressive sanctification is a journey of transformation. Think of metamorphosis. The caterpillar who ate leaves, died to its old mindset as it melted inside the cocoon. It emerged as a wet butterfly whose strength would come through the struggle.

Philippians 2:13 says, “For it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.” Colossians 3:17 says, “And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.”

1 Peter 4:11 says, “If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God. If anyone ministers, let him do it as with the ability which God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.”

I read “Lords Of The Earth” by Don Richardson. Three missionaries flew over an area of the Yali tribe in a far remote area of Irian Jaya in Indonesia. Thousands. Cannibals. Fierce warriors. Worshipers of false gods.

2 Corinthians 12:10 Amplified says, “…For when I am weak (in human strength), then am I (truly) strong (able, powerful in divine strength).” Stan and Bruno hazarded their lives as they lived out those words, constructing an air strip that would connect them with others.