Burden Bearing

Today many people are caring for other people and getting very stressed out, and perhaps even ill because of it.  You may be caring for a very sick child, or you may be caring for your spouse who needs constant care.  You may be caring for an aging parent who needs daily visits.  Or perhaps you are there for a sick friend who is suffering with cancer.  There’s no doubt about it, caring for others can take all your time and energy.  And if you are a Bible-believing Christian, and you are starting to get sick or burned out because of caring for another, this can present a problem for you. I know it has been a problem for me.

Yesterday I shared that my life was miraculously changed while I was attending Bible School.  After Bible School, I was filled with such a love of God for people that I wanted to love everyone.  And I wanted to help them in any way that I could to know the loving God of the Bible.  And so I did that, loving and helping people, until one day it all fell apart.  I literally became undone, burned out and stressed out.  People were coming to me with their problems and I’d try to counsel them out of the Bible, pray with them and try to be there for them in their times of need.  I was also working full time and trying to deal with the adjustments of living in the fast-paced city life, a far cry from the slower country life I had been accustomed to.  I had my own issues to deal with as I struggled to understand the big picture and what exactly I was supposed to be doing as far as my desire to write went.

So God was going to take me on a long journey of discovery about ministering to and helping people in need (I am still learning about this!).  I’d like to talk about this very important issue in today’s blog because I think it’s crucial to know what God’s Word says about the subject.  The fact that we are to help people is written all over the Bible.  I’ll just list a few verses here:

Gal 6:2  Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. NIV

Jas 1:27  Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. NIV

1Jn 3:16  Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.

1Jn 3:17  But whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? KJV

Basically, if we say that we love God, we have to love people too and we do this in very practical ways, meaning that usually it involves an action on our part.  But, there is something I want to make very clear from the start – these good works do not constitute salvation.  We are only saved through the blood of Jesus that He shed on the cross for us when He died and forgave us for all of our sins (see Titus 3:5).  Loving and helping people does not make us any more righteous or necessarily a better Christian than someone else.  It is just something that we are supposed to do (and in the case of love, we are commanded to), and should want to do considering all that God has done and does for us!  So you can imagine my despair when I discovered that I just couldn’t do it all anymore and keep up the pace of trying to do it all on my own.  The first thing I had to learn to do was pray about it!  I had to ask God how I could continue to love and help these people that were turning to me for support and answers.  I discovered the first powerful truth and it had to do with the following verses:

John 15:4  Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.

John 15:5  I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.

So I learned that I had been acting independently of the Holy Spirit!  No wonder why I was burning out!  This came as quite a shock to me, not to mention a blow to my human pride.  I needed to be abiding in the vine to get my strength; otherwise I could bear no fruit for Him.  I was doing things in my own strength and so I quickly ran out of strength.  I’m no horticulturist, but I do know that the branches of the tree have to be attached to the trunk in order to survive!  We are not meant to go it alone.

Another important lesson I learned from the above Scripture is that Jesus longs for us to spend time with Him.  He enjoys fellowship with us and He loves teaching us about Himself and showing us wonderful things about Kingdom life.  I can’t tell you all the precious times I’ve spent with Him and the many wonderful things He has taught me and shown me.  If you think of it, the heaven we are going to is all about sweet and uninterrupted fellowship with Him.  He’s invited us, His children, to His home.  Of course we want to be busy down here in the brief span of our lifetime to win lost souls for Him, but we can never neglect the time we spend with Him.  He is our source of strength, joy, wisdom, love and everything that is good that He mentions in His Word is good.    

Sometimes I think that we take on way too many projects or projects (I mean people projects) that are too much for us.  And we probably never even prayed about it to begin with.  So we start out with very good intentions, only to find that we can’t continue with it after awhile because it’s just too much!  Take a look at the following Scripture:

Psa 127:1  A Song of degrees for Solomon. Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain. KJV

We have to find out what it is that the Lord wants us to do in the first place.  Usually you will feel energized by the calling or the task He’s called you to do.  For me, primarily it’s always been writing.  I get great strength when I’m writing.  I rarely burn out.  I enjoy it and I could write for many hours at a time when I feel inspired.  But I know others who have a direct one-on-one ministry to people (practically my whole family), and they do not share my same passion for writing as something they would do.  They get their energy from helping people.  But there have been many times I have been involved in direct one-on-one ministry, and I’m thinking of when I was teaching in the public schools and in the university to foreign students.  I tried to minister to them every day in some way and this was exhilarating to me.  I enjoyed every minute of it.  There are times I would love to go back to teaching and I keep praying about it, but God has not opened that door for me again.  He has opened the door for me to write instead and so this is what I do.  Yet, still there are times I will get sidetracked away from writing (everything in life is a challenge, have you noticed?), and I will be asked to do things that I know will get me involved in such a way that my writing will suffer.  And if I say yes to every request, I might as well pack up the computers and put them away because I will likely not return to my writing.  So I have to really pray about my involvements because I want to do what the Lord has initiated and keep on with it until He says it’s time to stop and move on to something else.

Now getting back to what we started out talking about, when someone really needs you to look after them or help them because they are not well or for some other reason.  If you are the only person available to look after them and there is no other resource or person to do the job, then I believe that God will give you the strength to be able to do that.  I’ve seen it happen and I see it happening all the time.  God knows how much a person can take and how much we can endure.  And we must remember He has promised to make a way of escape when things get to be too much for us, if He has called us into a particularly difficult and challenging situation (see I Cor. 10:13). 

Finally, let’s look at the following Scripture:

Rom 15:1  We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves.

Rom 15:2  Let every one of us please his neighbour for his good to edification.

Rom 15:3  For even Christ pleased not himself; but, as it is written, The reproaches of them that reproached thee fell on me.

According to this, there are some who are stronger than others.  What immediately comes to mind are husbands and wives.  I don’t want to pick on husbands, but most husbands are much stronger than their wives because God made them that way.  Now what I am going to say I am sure does not apply to every husband out there, but please stay with me here … Don’t make your wife have to ask you for help when you can see that she’s overwhelmed by her many duties.  Just pitch in and help, or once awhile, let her rest while you do the cooking and cleaning, or even better, take her out for dinner!  She’ll love you even more than she does now and you’ll have a much happier home because of it!  And wives, fall all over him in gratitude when he does this for you and maybe he’ll offer to help more often!  That’s just my two cents worth of advice!  Now it’s time to close since I’ve moved into another blog – the marriage blog.  And speaking of that, please check out Craig’s blog – The Journey of Oneness.  He is gifted with some incredible insights into the marriage relationship.

Thank you for reading and may you be doubly blessed as you reach out to help someone in need today.