Bearing One Another’s Burdens – A Risky Business
Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.
Galatians 6:1-2 (ESV)
Today, I realized I had never really read these words properly. I had always assumed them to be simply about helping our brothers and sisters in Christ, when they are in need.
However, the wording of this passage is actually different. These verses talk about how we handle one another in times of sin or poor decision-making, or when our friends lose their way. The call is not to come valiantly alongside someone struggling and shoulder their burden. It is, instead, to stand beside someone after a transgression and to help them be restored. And, lest we should think too much of ourselves in the process, it also asks us to keep a watch on ourselves as we do it – reminding us to keep an eye on our pride, self-importance and propensity for making wrong decisions. Not to say that we condone people who have done things that are illegal, immoral, abusive or manipulative, but God’s grace wants to reach them even then. Too often, we use examples of the vilest offenders who are rightly punished by both the law and society to excuse us or others from standing alongside the adulterer, the cheat, the liar or the petty thief to show them a path toward restoration.
God here asks so much more of us than just to offer a helping hand. He asks us to stand alongside someone who has been cast out or rejected because of his or her choices. He asks us to stay humbly by their side, aware that this so easily could be us.
A good friend of mine once worked for a homeless charity in the U.K. He used to say that most people in western nations, even the best of them, are just four or five consecutive poor decisions away from homelessness: an act of infidelity, an act of gambling, one poor choice at work, one ethically questionable business dealing or one bitter row with a roommate. Our apparent stability and respectability can be washed away so easily.
Is there someone with whom you have cut ties due to their fall from grace, someone whom God may be calling you to bear his or her burden?
I pray that both you and I would have the courage, self-awareness and humility to reach out today and stand with such a sister or brother in Christ.
