I was speaking on burdens one night and came up with this illustration about letting God make our burdens easy to bear…
Supplies:
Three 10 foot 2×4’s
One cinder block
One rope
Preparation:
I took two of the 2×4’s and laid them on edge, side-by-side about 2 feet apart and cut the other one up to connect the two (basically i made something that looked like RR tracks). Then I took the rope and tied it to the cinder block and made a loop on the end so it would be easy to pick up.
Lesson:
I told the youth that life is tough enough without problems, it’s like having to walk on the edge of a 2×4 without falling off. I challnged one youth to walk the 2×4 without losing his balance and he did with only a little struggle.
I then said but life isn’s that easy, we have problems that we have to deal with. I then handed the guy the rope with the cinderblock on it and told him to walk the 2×4 again. He could not do it because his balance was thrown off.
I then said we need to let God balance us and preferrably we need to let Him have our burdens. I then jumped on the other 2×4 and put my hand on his shoulder and said now walk to the end of the 2×4. Walking with him, I was a counterbalance and kept him from falling.
I proceeded to explain that we need to let God be the one who balances us, but better yet we need to let Him take the burden from us so that all we have to focus on is walking the same speed as God. If we hold on to our burdens we can sometimes lose our focus of staying in step with God.
There are many different ways that you can end this and many different lessons you can apply it to. I would say that if you have the resources to actually try and get a section of railroad track for the lesson and run it down the center aisle of your youth room if size permits it.