Three year old Skylar loves to help me walk Jack the dog, holding his leash as we amble the quiet lanes of our subdivision. I’ve schooled her in what to do if Jack sees a squirrel and bolts. “What then, Skylar?”

“Drop it!” she says, demonstrating for me as Jack’s retractable leash flies out of her hand and toward his neck.

Yesterday as we walked along on a stifling afternoon, she asked why Jack’s tongue was hanging out of his mouth.

“He’s hot,” I said. “Dogs do that and pant to feel cooler.”

“Well,” she said, pausing and tipping her head to one side, “then why doesn’t he just take off his black furry coat?”

“He doesn’t know how,” I said.

“Then I’ll show him,” she said. “He has to do the zipper.”

“Can you do it for him?” I said.

“Sure, Grandma Midgee.”

Skylar hunted for several minutes, feeling Jack’s back, chest, tummy, even his legs, while our ever-patient dog stood still and panted.

“I can’t find it,” she finally said. “Can you do it?”

And so I hunted, too, coming up empty. “You know, I don’t think he has a zipper, Skylar.”

“But then how is he going to get his coat off?” she said.

“I guess he can’t.”

“Aww,” she said, sympathizing with his plight. “Poor Jackie.”

Sometimes I think God sees us that same way. We struggle along bearing heavy burdens with our proverbial tongues hanging out, wondering why life is so hard. Is there a zipper, a way to shed the weight? Yes, but we have to take advantage of it.

God’s “zippers” are linked to his promises. If we believe them, we can shed our burdens as easily as throwing off a heavy fur coat on a hot day.

• For example, if we believe the promise that he’ll work everything out for good, we’ll begin looking for that good, automatically focusing away from the bad.
• Because he says he’ll always be with us, we’ll begin talking to him more, pouring out our requests and being surprised by his answers.
• When he promises peace in the midst of chaos, we’ll handle every crisis with calm composure rather than all-out panic.
• As we believe his promise to forgive us, we’ll be able to move away from damage we’ve caused and start fresh.

These are just a few, but Scripture is jam-packed with promises. It’s God’s love letter to us, filled with good offers to help us live a burden-free life, but it’s our choice. We can cloak ourselves with heavy loads we’re not meant to bear, or we can search for a zipper and throw off what threatens to smother us in favor of a lighter life.

None of us have to end up like poor Jack, weighed down by hot, heavy burdens without a zipper.

“He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature.” (2 Peter 1:4)