Carry each other’s burdens. (Gal. 6:2)
MY KIDS LOVE to go on walks in the woods with me. They are both toddlers, so we don’t cover as many miles together as I do alone. But we have fun. For a while anyway. Then one of them gets tired and begs to be carried until I concede. With half a mile to go to get to the car, I inevitably find myself hoisting one of them on my shoulders. Sometimes I even carry both of them at the same time. This requires a lot of extra effort for me, but I am usually glad to do it, because I love them.
Somehow as adults, we grow out of the honest vulnerability that we once had as children. We become wary of letting other people see our personal struggles. We wait too long to ask for help. We are afraid that we’ll burden someone else with our problems because they have enough of their own. And in holding our troubles close, we often miss one of the nearest gifts that God has given us to be renewed—each other.
Carrying each other’s burdens doesn’t mean getting bogged down. It means sharing in their struggle, and ultimately bearing those burdens away to Christ in prayer. To do this, we must take a risk. And that risk is trusting one another.
Share a personal struggle with a trusted friend this week.
Jarod Osborne is lead pastor of Pathway Church, Warsaw, Indiana. He is the author of Jaded Faith (WPH).
© 2019 Wesleyan Publishing House. Reprinted from Light from the Word. Used by permission.
