Jesus was grieved, stricken, smitten, afflicted, pierced, crushed, chastised, and wounded—all to bear us up under our greatest burden: the soul-crushing weight of guilt and the penalty of the never-ending death our sin deserves (Isa. 53:4–5). On the cross, Jesus bore the heaviest burden, the sharpest thorn, and the most excruciating relational loss there is to bear. His blood-stained cross and empty tomb are the proof we need to trust that He has already taken our greatest burden upon Himself.

Counting the Days Ahead

I tried to calculate what lay ahead.

One emergency surgery. One tumor removed, along with part of my colon. An ileostomy bag. Six months of chemotherapy. An ileostomy reversal. Five weeks of recovery. Another month and a half of radiation. When I added it all together, the result came to nearly three-fourths of 2025.

I ran those numbers one night while trying to fall asleep. Instead of resting, I drifted into worry. My mind raced ahead, tallying the burdens those nearly 275 days might carry—every procedure, each side effect, all the needles. I was attempting to shoulder tomorrow’s troubles all at once. Eventually, I remembered to pray, and the Lord graciously brought to mind verses I have often shared with others in seasons of suffering: “Blessed be the Lord who daily bears us up. God is our salvation. Our God is a God of salvation, and to God, the Lord, belong deliverances from death.” (Ps. 68:19–20)

Grace for One Day at a Time

The Lord daily bears us up—day by day, one day at a time.

Jesus said it this way: “Don’t worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own” (Matt. 6:34). Each day’s shelves are stocked with plenty of burdens, Jesus says. No wonder I couldn’t sleep.

Through Psalm 68:19, Jesus has ministered to me with a precious truth, “Leave tomorrow’s burdens there; I will bear you up under them tomorrow. Leave every procedure, each side effect, and all those needles right where they are, on their own appointed days. I will bear you up when we get to them. I bear you up under your real burdens when they show up in real time, no matter what or how many they are.”

“But Jesus,” I argue, “there are so many real burdens coming my way. Will Your bearing match my burdens?”

In Hebrew, the first line of Psalm 68:20 literally reads, “Our God is a God of salvations.” Salvations, plural. Our God has an endless supply of salvations. The next line says it another way: “To God, the Lord, belong deliverances from death.” While there are many ways to die, both literally and figuratively, our God has many more ways of escape. He has stocked His shelves with an endless supply of rescues from daily deaths.

That’s how Jesus can bear us up daily. The storehouses of His heart are fuller of salvations and deliverances than our days are filled with troubles and deaths.

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