Feeling burdened?

I love this time of year. As Major League Baseball’s season starts, each team and fan cherishes hopes of a World Series championship. Former Chicago Cubs player Ernie Banks, expressing his great love for the game, once said, “It’s a beautiful day for a ballgame. Let’s play two!” – which came to be considered his signature line.

There are times when we may echo Banks’ joy in our own lives. But what about times when obligations and tasks seem burdensome?

We can learn a lesson from a conversation Jesus had with a crowd of people. He was urging them to keep their focus on what really matters. They asked him, “What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?” Jesus replied, “This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent” (John 6:28, 29, italics added). Here we find the answer when we feel that our life duties are too much or too hard: Start with the true work.

Our true work in everything we do is to “believe on him” – to recognize that the Christ, Truth, that Jesus so fully lived is always with us, and to follow Christ. This Christ is God’s – divine Love’s – message ever present in human thought, coming to consciousness to destroy error (anything not of God) and enabling us to do whatever we need to do.

Christ reveals to us that God and His law of ever-present good give us the intelligence, strength, and courage to accomplish every duty with joy and assurance. Genuinely necessary or Love-inspired duties are not frustrating or menial; they are opportunities to express the qualities of God, which include wisdom, kindness, and love. Living these qualities in everything we do blesses both the worker and the work.

When a sense of burden, fear, or failure arises, this can be recognized as not the reality but merely the belief that man is separated from God, divine Principle. Man (meaning the true, spiritual identity of each of us) can never be separated from God’s ever-unfolding goodness because God is infinite and omnipresent. That leaves no room for fear to penetrate our God-given stability and confidence.

When we realize and are willing to deeply acknowledge this, we can feel our oneness with God as His child – our spiritual sonship and daughterhood. This leads to any human sense of pressure and limitation being replaced by the freedom that comes with being God’s very expression right now, with the ability and wisdom to meet every deadline and have our work bless us and others – even the world.

The Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, encourages us with these words: “Let us feel the divine energy of Spirit, bringing us into newness of life and recognizing no mortal nor material power as able to destroy. Let us rejoice that we are subject to the divine ‘powers that be’” (“Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” p. 249). Yielding to this divine energy in prayer dispels worry and stress and helps us feel the spiritual freedom of God’s control over every circumstance, allowing His wisdom and power to reign in our thinking, bodies, and lives.

Years ago, I was asked to write and have published a column on spirituality and health in newspapers throughout the state in which I lived. This felt overwhelming, and I prayed for guidance and searched for potential opportunities. One day these words came to me: “Love the work.” That became my focus and aim – to love each opportunity and challenge as the work of loving God and extending that love to everyone I met.

It took a while, and there were some unfruitful trips, appointments, and submissions. But within a few years, I had been published throughout the state, including monthly columns in five newspapers.

One day, while I was eating in a restaurant, a woman who recognized me from my newspaper photo came over to my table. She said she loved what she had been reading in my column and encouraged me to continue writing. My gratitude to God was great, and I mentally stated, “Father, let’s continue this work – let’s play two!”

No matter how many “works” we have to do, we can all work “the work of God.” Acknowledging our oneness with God and His ever-present truth as our own brings us the opportunities, wisdom, and strength to defeat any sense of burden – and do God’s will.

Adapted from an editorial published in the March 24, 2025, issue of the Christian Science Sentinel.