We Only Bear the Burden of the Hour

God broke our years into hours and days,
That hour by hour and day by day,
Just going on a little way,
We might be able, all along,
To keep quite strong.

Should all the weight of life be laid
Across our shoulders at just one place,
And the future, rife with woe and struggle,
Meet us face to face,
We could not go;
Our feet would stop, and so
God lays a little on us every day.

And never, I believe in all life’s way,
Will burdens bear so deep,
Or pathways lie so steep,
But we can go, if, by God’s power,
We only bear the burden of the hour.

—Author Unknown

[Quoted in David Jeremiah, Turning Toward Joy (Wheaton: Scripture Press, 1992), 172.]