Leave It There
“Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance.” Psalm 42:5, NKJV
“Put all your troubles in a sack, take ’em to the Lord, and leave ’em there.” These good words of advice were given by Charles Tindley, the distinguished black Methodist pastor from Philadelphia, to one of his worried parishioners. It was the inspiration that prompted the pastor to develop this thought and write the words and music of this familiar gospel hymn in 1916.
Someone once said; “If you tell your troubles to God, you put them into the grave. If you tell your troubles anywhere else, they will roll back again.”
We will never be able to escape the troubles that life brings, but we can always turn to the Lord for strength and deliverance and then … “leave it there.” When we cannot calmly leave our burdens and affairs in God’s hands, we are often tempted to use wrong means to solve our problems, such as relying upon our human wisdom rather than God’s guidance. We need to seek relief for our problems by giving them to God.
Of course, giving the problem to God is only half of the battle and, by the way, probably the easiest part of the battle. The second and most difficult part of this battle is “leaving them there with the Lord”. That seems to be the key in the secret to giving our troubles to the Lord for Him to deal with. “Leaving Them There”. For most of us will pick those troubles back up from the Lord if He, in our opinion, is too slow with the remedy.
Today, give that trouble, that concern, that worry, that frustration, that dilemma, that weakness to the Lord and then, “Leave It There”.
—Bro. Riley