When we were little, my mum used to read Jungle Doctor stories to us. These were a collection of stories that a missionary had told to help communicate the Gospel and were later put into book form. The stories were allegorical tales about the different animals.
In one story, Antelope comes across Monkey. Young monkey was always getting into scrapes and for whatever reason, he was passed out and a long way from the family tree. So Antelope heaved monkey onto his shoulders and began carrying him home. He quickly became exhausted and elephant found him struggling away, puffing, panting and sweating.
Elephant said “let me help you.” Then with his trunk he lifted Antelope and monkey onto his back and began to take them back home. Not long later, Elephant could still hear Antelope puffing and panting away. “Are you okay up there?” He asked.
“No” came the response. “Monkey is too heavy for me.” Elephant asked Antelope why he was still attempting to carry monkey and not set him down on his back. “But you were so kind in agreeing to carry me,” said Antelope. “I couldn’t possible expect you to carry my burden too.”
Too often, we can be like Antelope. We keep on struggling with our burdens, including trying to carry other people. We need to be reminded that we can and should cast all of our burdens onto Jesus.
Faithroots 