Carrying Burdens

This quote is worth reading: 

"I’m not saying be dour, long-faced or stoic.  Quite the contrary. “Be of good cheer” was His oft repeated expression, even using it as a greeting on many occasions.  (See Matt. 14: 27; Mark 6: 50; John 16: 33; Acts 23: 11; 3 Ne. 1: 13; D&C 68: 6, among others.) Cheerfully go about doing good, and trust in Him.  He will guide you. He was happy. He was cheerful. So are those who know Him best. (See, e.g., JS-H 1: 28.) 

There isn’t a single thing you do for His sake which He will forget or fail to credit to you.  Nor is there a single mistake which He will remember and hold against you, if you repent. (D&C 58: 42.)

You should let your thoughts be such that you will be confident in His presence.  (D&C 121: 45.) Be of good cheer.

I know of no more cheerful a being in the universe than Christ. When He says, Be of good cheer, we ought to all accept that as the mantra. There is nothing that any of us will ever go through that He hasn’t gone through, with a considerable greater degree of difficulty. He lived with a higher ‘specific gravity’ than any of us had to ever fight against. And He won for each of us a prize that is potentially eternal. It will be eternal, one way or the other. But if you take full measure of what He offers, it will be delightfully eternal. 

Cowardice is largely predicated upon fear. Don’t be cowardly. Don’t be fearful. Fear is the opposite of faith. For goodness sake, you’re already in the battle! You’re already going to be overtaken. The fact of the matter is that no one gets out of here alive. Live this life nobly, fearlessly. When you take the wounds that come your way, you make sure that they come to your front! Don’t let ‘em shoot you in the back. Go about your life boldly, nobly, valiantly. Because it is only through valiance in the testimony of Jesus Christ that you can hope to secure anything—not valiance in your fidelity to anything other than Jesus Christ. The fact of the matter is that faith must be based in Him, and Him alone."

Podcast Episode 95: Good Cheer

What strikes me in this is not just the call to be brave, but the call to be cheerful while we're at it.  

Within this quote, and in my own life experience, I see how easy it is to carry burdens in a way that is anything but cheerful. Some burdens are difficult, heavy, and seem as though they may never end. Some come from our own choices, but others come from things outside our control.

And yet, it seems there is wide variety of options in how we carry them.

If Christ can be cheerful after carrying far more than we ever will, then cheerfulness must be possible even under weight. So what is the key? How does a person remain cheerful under pressure?

One of the things scriptures teach that Christ gained through the atonement, was knowledge. Knowledge seems to be part of the key. Christ’s knowledge and hope seems to be part of the recipe  for cheer. 

But knowing that cheerfulness is something we are taught to have does not mean it’s easy.  It’s not pretending things are easy. I do not think it means denying sorrow, danger, exhaustion, or difficulty.  Perhaps it means we do not have to let those things overtake us and that it's possible to carry them well, or alternatively, carry them poorly and end up feeling grim.  

I've noticed it's possible to be serious without becoming heavy.  As well as discern danger without living under dread or living in fear. We can carry weight without becoming joyless. That is typically not my mind and body’s default response, but through Christ, I have to admit the scripture's prove being of good cheer is possible and encouraged.  

Christ said His yoke is easy and His burden is light (Matthew 11:28–30). That seems odd, considering He bore the heaviest burden of all. And yet there it is. We are all yoked, one way or another, by sin, unbelief, error, weakness, incomplete understanding, and distorted perspectives. But cheerfulness may be one of the signs that we are learning to carry our load with Him.

I have noticed that when I try to carry my burdens alone, I feel weighed down by them. When I carry them with God, the burden does not always disappear, but it does seem to change.

Perhaps cheerfulness is not something we force ourselves to manufacture. Perhaps it is something that happens naturally when we are aligned with God, trusting Christ, and serving in the right way. Perhaps when trust in Christ becomes real, our burdens really can become light.