It’s not all on us!
It’s not all on us! Being a young adult in our society today is very hard because there is so much pressure to be successful. Social media has made us think that we must be millionaires, married with kids by the time we are 25 and 30 at the latest. I believe this is one of the reasons why there are many people who struggle with anxiety and other mental health issues. We are worrying about tomorrow like Brian was talking about. Before, the path to success was very simple, all you had to do was go to college and get a great job. In our times today, that model of success is no longer guaranteed. There are many people with college degrees, and they don’t even use them. A college degree doesn’t guarantee a job anymore. On top of that, if you do have a college degree, they expect you to have two to three years of job experience by the time you graduate. That’s just stress from work, on top of work, we also have family issues, and friend drama.
We, young adults, are getting hit from every side. Somewhere along the line we have taken on the full weight of all these situations and the result is the following:
In 2022, approximately 42% of undergraduate students reported using cannabis in their life.
33.1% of undergraduate students reported using tobacco or nicotine in their lifetime.
3.1% of undergraduate students reported misusing prescription stimulants in their lifetime.
Male college students are as follows: alcohol(73.7%), marijuana (42.5%), Adderall (14.6%), cocaine (7%), LSD (6.8%), and tranquilizers(3.8%).
Female college students are as follows alcohol(75.1%), marijuana (42.2%), Adderall (8.8%), cocaine (4.3%), tranquilizers(3.3%), MDMA (2.7%), and LSD (2.6%).
We have turned to drugs and alcohol to help us deal with all these pressures.
These are just some statistics that I found. I am here to tell you there is another way. There is someone greater than us, who loves us so much and has a solution to our worry, anxiety and many more.
Matthew 11:28-30, “28 Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.””
“28 Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Christ will never force Himself on you. He will always give you many opportunities to come to Him. The main point in these verses is that He will give you rest. Resting in God is the most important thing any of us can do. In the New Testament there are many instances that we are told to rest in God. Here are a few examples:
John 14:27, “27 Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”
Philippians 4:6-7, “6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; 7 and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”
When you are truly resting in God, the theme for this month comes alive. You are saying it’s not all on me, but it’s all on Him. So, what is rest? Rest is when we are truly dependent on Christ for everything.
Hebrews 4:1-3, “Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it. 2 For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it. 3 For we who have believed do enter that rest…”
The people who did not enter the rest are the Children of Israel. They did not enter that rest because they chose to not believe what God told them. This below verse details how the children of Israel respondent to God.
Numbers 13:30-33, “30 Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, “Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it.” 31 But the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we.” 32 And they gave the children of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, “The land through which we have gone as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great stature. 33 There we saw the giants (the descendants of Anak came from the giants); and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.”
God kept on telling them that they are more than able to go up and take that land. If you read the whole story, you will see Caleb and Joshua are the only two people who believed that. As a result of their unbelief, they missed out on God’s best.
To us this is just a good story that happened a long time ago that has no relevance to us today. God told them He would take care of them, but they chose to not believe Him. How many times has the Lord promised to take care of us and we have not believed Him. How many times has He told us He got us, but we have chosen to not believe. I want that disobedience to end today. Let us decide to believe Him and enter His rest, because ‘It is not on us’ but ‘It is all on Him.’
