Carry Your Own Load

 

“…for each one should carry their own load.”

—Galatians 6:5b

The Apostle Paul fascinates me with his brilliance. As he gave instruction to the early churches, he often used contrast in order to bring balance to his teaching.

In my last post, I shared Paul’s instruction to carry one another’s burdens. In the very next verses, he offers these words from Galatians 6:3-5:

If anyone thinks they are something when they are not, they deceive themselves. Each one should test their own actions. Then they can take pride in themselves alone, without comparing themselves to someone else, for each one should carry their own load.

So, while we are to carry one another’s burdens, we are also instructed not to depend on others or expect others to carry our burdens. Rather, we are to carry our own burdens.

This places Paul’s teaching into perfect balance. We are to hasten to help our brothers and sisters in Christ with their burdens, but we are to do our best to carry our own burdens.

As we struggle to carry our own burdens, when a brother or sister in Christ reaches out to us to help us, we can joyfully receive such help with sincere gratitude. However, we never become dependent on the help of others. We must never become expectant for that help. We must never wait for someone to do for us what we should do for ourselves.

These two teachings create a perfect balance in our lives. But, these contrasting teachings also make it critically important to live in community with our brothers and sisters in Christ: always seeking to help, but never expecting others to help us.

Such perfect balance gives us lives worth living. How very wise our God is in His unfailing love for us.

 

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