Jan Spies tells a story about a farmer who rode out on a donkey to go for a hunt. He got two springbucks, loaded them on the donkey and then started moving the donkey homewards. Somewhere along the way the donkey was frightened by something and ran away. The farmer only found him the next afternoon.

 

They removed the two buck from his back, but when they turned him loose, he could not walk properly. He raised his feet much higher than necessary; like a horse who wanted to triple. The farmer made a noteworthy remark about the donkey's behaviour, stating that if we could get rid of all our burdens, we would be like the donkey having to learn anew how to walk without the burdens on our back.

 

We are all beasts of burden. Sometimes the burden is light, sometimes very heavy. Many of these burdens are of our own making, but some we have no control over; they just pile up. Many times, our burden is a sin that we are struggling to remove from our lives. One of the heaviest burdens is pride, especially when we cannot accept that we are mere creatures before God, the Creator. We want to be in control, we want to bring about our own salvation.

 

When we finally reach the stage where we completely submit our lives to God, we have to learn, spiritually speaking, how to walk again. This “learning to walk again” is an exciting trip with God, after all the Bible says: “the yoke I will give you is easy, and the load that I will put on you is light.”