Edges of His Ways, February 22

Upon their shoulders

Numbers 7:9

The Princes of the Tribes brought six covered wagons and twelve oxen for the service of the Tabernacle. Those wagons were given to the Levites, that is to the sons of Gershon and Merari, to every man according to his service; but to the sons of Kohath no wagons were given, "because the service of the Sanctuary belonging unto them was that they should bear upon their shoulders."

Those men were human. I wonder if they were ever tempted to wish they could have wagons. They also were grandsons of Aaron. Why must they carry those heavy burdens on their shoulders when their cousins had bullock-carts? If such thoughts ever came, perhaps they found help in remembering that to them was committed the care of the most precious things, things too precious to be carried in any other way

Is it not so even now? The burdens we have to carry on our shoulders are what our God counts the most precious.

The Shepherd took the lost sheep--and a sheep is a heavy thing--and laid it on His shoulders. If the Good Shepherd asks us to bear upon our shoulders the care of souls, surely it is because that burden is too precious to be carried in any other way.

Amy Carmichael