Bearing the Consequences
Bear one another’s burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ. Galatians 6:2 NASB
Bear – Can you really bear the burden of another? Ah, you’ll probably answer, “Yes, of course.” But what if the burden is something uncomfortable? What if it’s not the usual financial, medical, social kind of needs that we so often pray about? What if the burden is a deep, emotionally loaded secret? What if the burden is shame? Could you bear that?
Let’s see.
“Tolerance for disappointment, determination, and a belief in self are the heart of hope.”[1] If this is true, what do you do for the person who has little or no tolerance for disappointment? Who lacks determination? Who does not believe in himself? Aren’t those burdens of far more import than a lack of funds? What if I told you about someone I know who wavers, who fights to stay on the path but sometimes fails, who might even believe that the attempt to remain true is impossible? What if I told you about someone whose past emotional trauma has undermined hope? What if I told you about someone who is characterized by Paul’s deplorable elucidation in Romans 7? And what if I told you about a person whose internal conflict erupts in self-destructive behavior that ushers in a tsunami of shame? What if merely being with such a person would most likely result in your own loss of reputation? What if you became a leper by association?
How would you bear that kind of burden? Would you be willing to lose your fine standing, your social acceptance, your pristine image by involvement with this kind of burden-bearing? Before you answer, consider this:
“When we choose to be true to ourselves, the people around us will struggle to make sense of how and why we are changing. Partners and children might feel fearful and unsure about the changes they’re seeing. Friends and family may worry about how our authenticity practice will affect them and our relationships with them.”[2]
Bearing psychological burdens creates social pariahs. In a Greco-Roman world, associating with someone who is “losing it” is often viewed as infectious. Truly bearing burdens means standing in the other’s shoes, and sometimes those shoes are in very dark and lonely places. Sometimes bearing a burden means being afraid of what might happen with too much empathy. Perhaps that’s why Paul addresses the community. Perhaps it’s just too much to try to be the noble Greek individual. If my attempt to rescue you means that I get lost, nothing has been gained.
Topical Index: bear, burden, Brené Brown, Galatians 6:2
[1] Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection, p. 66.
[2] Ibid., p. 51.
A CRY FOR HELP: Many of you know my youngest son, Michael. I got an email today saying that he was admitted to the hospital with blood clots in his leg after surgery. Please pray for him! Thanks.
Michael is being lifted before the Father as are you, Skip. May YHVH keep you and may you have the fulness of Messiah’s joy. Through everything may He bring unity to His people.
I am praying for him.
Please let us know how he is.
Life can change in an instant. Can it not. ?
Praying
Praying!
We are praying, Skip.
This was timely for me. I was praying through the best way to confront someone today and was seeking to let go of anger and have a right attitude toward her and love her in this difficult season. As I read this at lunch, it was a good reminder of how I need to love her and share in the burden, whatever it may be. It changed the tone of my heart and the conversation was a healing one.
Yes, may those clots dissipate rapidly and a full and complete recovery ensue.
Praying
Thanks for sharing your concern for your son. I will be lifting him up for healing today.
I have prayed for Michael and for you, Skip, and will continue. May you both experience the care and comfort of YHWH.
Thoughts and prayers are with you.
Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the Universe, who brings relief/salvation to those who are in distress. In the name of Yeshua, bring quick relief.
Brian, Thank you for this prayer. It penetrated my own very needy soul and I know it blesses YHVH, Michael, Skip, Rosanne and everyone involved in this time of suffering and confusion with Michael’s battle.
Skip, prayers for your son for a prompt and complete recovery.
I’m praying.
As to your insight today, I’ve been dealing with it in ministry for years. It first started with my family, but eventually they have come along and been a part. But many friends and folks in ministry left me when God began to do what He does. It can be very lonely. I often have felt like Jesus before his shearers. Sometimes God doesn’t let you say anything or let anyone hear you. That’s painful and difficult. But, I’m seeing how and why God has done the things He’s done. I find its always to give me the perspective of “the least of these.” He always shows me someone in our ministry who is in that place of pain and I find He’s been training me to “minister with” rather than minister “to” or “for”. It really does make a big difference, but, it takes a long time – God’s idea of long suffering work. Oh well, what do we do but keep on keeping on.
God bless you and your family and I pray for Michael’s release and natural blood flow to come back to him. Blessings.
Father, please minister in all the deep places.
Praying for Michael and for you and your family.
I sometimes find myself going into a temporary shame spiral when someone makes a derogatory comment about a drug addict being that I was or am one. Depending on your view of being restored. Or even worse when someone mentions a person being killed by a drunk driver since I drove under the influence as well. And there but for the grace of God go I.
God has delivered me from this shame but may I always be mindful of where I came from.
I still don’t know how to address these remarks. But I think of Yeshua and that releases me from that downward shame spiral.
I know I can be with someone in that place of debilitating shame. There were many days that turned into years where I lived in total darkness.
The thing about shame is the secrets behind the shame. When and if a person can ever break free of the unwritten code of silence that pervades our culture I believe healing starts. Pride keeps up separated and says I’m not like that person.
Yeshua said he came to heal those that are not whole. I think if we were totally honest, we would know that applies to all of us. Blessed are those that recognize they are not whole.
AMEN!
Lee, your comments resonated with me. I have noticed that Yeshua said He came to save the lost. He had nothing to offer anybody else. I think the world is preoccupied with avoiding this truth. False religions are full of ways to avoid it – are constructed precisely as to assist the planet in lying to itself. We don’t want to admit that we are lost, helpless, needy or desperate. Society is constructed around these cute little ways we have of pretending we are all right when we are not. When someone slips up and gets to a place where their lostness is showing (like addictions that are beyond social tolerance) we typically either shun them or try to ‘fix’ them, neither of which works, of course. I spent my years in Alanon learning why I could not be someone else’s saviour, and also learning to admit my own problems, which were just as bad. In the process, I have found a few surprises. The biggest discovery was that when I found my bottom, I found not only the way to relate with God that actually worked (nothing else was); I had discovered the secret to relating correctly with others. Relating IS righteousness, y’all! Hurray!
The years I avoided my bottom were the years I was susceptible to others’ chaos. I think we avoid others because we are afraid of being ‘contaminated’ (having to share that shame – thanks, Skip!) or having to ‘fix it’. Alanon taught me how NOT to do either. Honesty about my own problems keeps me safe from the problems of others. Who knew? I am susceptible to having a problem with the problems of others at the same ratio that I am attempting to avoid or to hide my own, and that’s the truth. Yes, I can bear the public shame along with another person, but that is not the same as walking in the private hell of my own interior shame. I don’t have to feel BAD: on the contrary, sharing someone else’s rotten tomato experiences is a quite dignified and self-respecting thing to do. Yeshua did not exactly lose His dignity when He stood up for the woman ‘caught’ in adultery. Quite the opposite! This is our Example.
Shame is about secrecy. Being open about my issues keeps me from the agony of the issues of others. I can jump in your ditch with you as long as I keep that other foot (my own honesty about my own lostness) on the bank. It is the only position, in fact, from which I can really help anybody, anyway! The graceful way to deal with a bottom is: a, don’t avoid it, and b: bounce. Bounce is good. How to bounce? That would be gratitude for being where you are. That’s grace in action. The world has decided that it does not want to know the truth that will set it free because the truth makes us all squirm and sweat, and it would rather lie about the situation, but I think the other reason is because it has no answer to the disaster we all find ourselves in, where we have no way out, and no redeeming qualities, either. That’s intolerable! The world has to avoid its bottom because not a single false religion, not even humanism, has a way to deal with it. But, we do! Halleluah!
Heart’s Cry (First Step)
Would you know where I am if I don’t know?
Could you reach out and touch me if I don’t show?
If I hated myself and thought it was you
If I was so lost I didn’t have a clue
Where I was at – much less you
Could you come to me?
If I couldn’t budge an inch
Stuck in my trench
If the wheels of my life
Kept spinning me, spinning me
Out of control
Would you know how I got there?
Could you take my wheel
And back me out of my own bad deal?
Would you come to me?
I don’t know why I started out so far from you
I only know I’ve hated how I I’ve hated you
Where can we begin again?
I am lost
I am stuck
I’m behind that cement truck
Can’t stop
Can’t start
Can’t even find my heart
What can I do?
Come to me
Come to me
Come to me
In my insanity come to me
When I have nowhere to go
Please run to me
Why would you come to me?
Am I testing you to see if you love me?
Am I running because I know you can catch me?
Do I make you cry so I can feel better?
Do I know that you know that I don’t know better?
Can love try
With someone such as I?
Would I run to you if you ran to me?
Would I take your hand if you reached out to me?
Is this a test of your love or mine?
Could we make it ours
If you came to me?
?Big Hugs to you. ?
Thank you for your words. And the poem is so moving. Tears of gratitude for what God has done for me.
Shalom Shalom
I lift up Michael in prayer , you also Skip and the rest of the family, not only do we have the greatest FATHER ever , but. also the most AWESOME physician, your son will be well!
Sorry, I forgot to let you know Skip my thoughts and prayers are with your son and family. I hope he is on the road to healing.
Shalom
James 5:13-15 For Michael and everyone reading this blog who is in need of comfort or healing.
Brian welcome back…
Forgive each other 7X70… The strong should carry the weak.. And now bear the burden. Luckily my sins are worse than others so bearing their burden is maybe lighter for me than others… Forgive me Father as I have sinned… No that sounds to easy…
Is it not when we aid and help others that we truly discover our own strength to overcome our shortfalls…
Is it not that when we exalt others that the universe rejoices…
Aa Laurita said in an earlier blog, there is no mystical starting point that empowers us it is our choice to do without provisos.
Maybe this bearing, carrying and forgiving has the power in it when we start doing…
Maybe the question is when will I begin rather than discussing where can I.. For as much as you have done to the least of the brethren of Mine have ye done to Me… Matthews 25.
Or wait a moment. Was the OT approach not what benefit is it to father a 100 children when we cannot save our own soul…
Doesn’t James 5:13-16 assume you have a real community who really CARES about one another? I find no comfort in religious, pious folk anointing me with oil and walking away from my needs, saying, “I will pray for you.”
That does seem the recommendations. I would say it is more about the faith of those assembled. Even if only 3 their support and care is what read is the answer…
Your cry for help for Michael has been heard and I have prayed. Keep us posted on his progress.
Sharing emotional burdens of shame… Based on personal experience, no one wants to hear that kind of stuff. It makes them too uncomfortable. They are quick to discount and blow things away as if the shame was a feather easily swept away. They don’t realize how much they were trusted when the information was divulged to them. When the response isn’t what is hoped for, it hurts because the information is out there and there’s no telling what will be done with it. In addition, what is absolutely humiliating and shameful to me isn’t as big a deal to others unless it directly affects them in some manner. If it’s a leprosy that’s considered contagious to them and their family members, they will remove themselves from my life and/or the source of my shame. Such isolation is very lonely and painful. In addition, gossip and intentional shaming that is a result of hearing that information is further damaging. Another thing that could happen is that said person could demand that I accept the blame or guilt for the source of shame when it’s not even my fault. Talk about adding insult to injury. That’s hell. Those who hear the gossip, will also back away. How can they know the full truth unless God reveals it to them over an extended period of time? At that point, you are alone and just dying inside. You’d give anything for someone to come along and love on you enough to fill your tank because you can’t even stand on your own two feet. That could last a long time. The experience definitely changes you. The change is dependent on how your respond to it. What you do reveals what’s in your heart. What’s wonderful is when people choose to carry or cover your burden of shame. Demonstrating the love of the Messiah is key here. You become family at a depth ordinary people can’t imagine. You love them. They love you. You cry together. You laugh together. There is joy. It’s so wonderful.
Amen! Well put and very penetrating, Beth. Thank you.
At the beginning of this year, my family moved back to Virginia from Louisiana (a shout out and shalom to the people at “The Gathering!”). One of the reasons we moved back was to take care of a family crisis. My dad decided to abandon my mom. They were together for almost 50 years.
The journey with my parents is ongoing and very challenging. I recently had a dream about my dad that I believe blends in with the teaching presented today by Skip. The dream: I am in my daughter’s room with my dad lying on her bed. It is light outside and I am standing beside my dad with the word of the Lord in my mouth . . . The scene immediately changes: it is night outside and I am in bed with my dad. I am at the bottom of the bed facing the wall. I can feel pressure on my back and I try to speak to my dad but my voice is constrained and all that comes out is muffled moans. My dad seems alarmed and sits up in bed to check on me. My moans are audible to my wife and she wakes me up.
Interpretation: My daughter’s room is one of the most intimate places in the home we are now living. We as a family hang out there because it gives us the best light and view. A bed is a place of rest and deep intimacy, but it can also be a place of complacency and avoidance. My dad is sleeping in the light and I am trying to wake him up! But, this is not the best strategy from heaven’s point of perspective. This is why the scene immediately changes: God longs for me to feel and see from the point of view of His heart. I was being intimate and feeling the pressure of where my dad is at in his present darkness. My inability to speak is his inability to articulate what is going on with himself. He is alarmed that I would choose to identify myself with him that closely. He wakes up when I volunteer to be with him in his darkness. I am not identifying with the darkness, but with my dad in the darkness of his complacency and avoidance.
The journey with my dad up to this point has been one of deep pain and sorrow (identifying with the pain and sorrow he has caused me). The journey is different now; it is a pearl of great price. The pressure is on to be conformed to the image of Yeshua.
I hope this helps someone. Please let me know if it does.
YHWH is King!
Brian,
I am very familiar with fathers who cause huge pain to their families and are excellent at violating and then abandoning. Bravo to you for trying to love your unlovely father. I will hold you and your family up in prayer today, especially your dad, that his heart will be deeply pricked and that he will fall on his knees in the sort of repentance that immediately changes lives.
Keep going, Brian. Keep obeying your true Father!!!
Thank you for your prayers.
Skip, I’m lifting Michael up.
I’m a part of a community. At least community is what were aiming for. In our practice and stretching towards that goal, we have seen firsthand the value of the community helping individuals. Community helping individuals is working to strengthen the community. We are small and don’t have an appointed leader type dictating the orchestration of the help given. It’s much more organic and requires a lot of communication and interaction to help someone as a community. The more we help together we are finding more people feeling safe to ask for help which in turn builds community and makes us more equipped to meet needs. It’s proving to be a win-win cycle.
Tanya, Oh how blessed you are! We long for that community!
Brian interesting dream… Job’s friends reminded him that God uses dreams to warn against our planned ways. Something I learnt is that beds better represent faith. Your dream is God speaking to you, the before and after shots… Take a closer look at how your journey left your daughter.
My daughter is speaking to me again but I missed her two life important interactions because I was preoccupied…
Maybe God is reminding you to focus on your relationship with your daughter.
My life lesson towards tough love is that true love is a reward not a perception…
Skip,
(Ric and I are thinking you are still on the boat while Michael is dealing with this health crisis. Please know that we are with you, and also with him and your family, in the Spirit of God. I will be praying throughout the day today.)
‘Bearing the Consequences:” To me, this is one of the best posts you’ve ever done (that I’ve read! You’ve done LOTS! [Thank you and thank you again for Today’s Word.]) It is the CHALLENGE to REAL followers of the Messiah to “put shoe leather” to their “love.” This post describes the real true risks of living (c)hesed. The world will know us (and our love for YHVH) by our love??!! Ouch. Do we REALLY love one another… or are we too busy building our own little castles, too comfortable (or too uncomfortable), too smug, too scared, too apathetic, too religious to get all mixed up in the messes of real people’s lives? It’s easy (in comparison) to go off to some foreign region and be a “missionary.” It’s tough to be accountable to and for the remnant of true bond servants of Messiah who live next to us. It’s risky to have other people see our “warts” and to hold each other accountable when we see a servant of the Most High God opening the tiniest crack to sin. In fact, we have a really tough time even finding these sold-out slaves and staying in close physical proximity to them let alone really carrying each others burdens!
When God tells us in the Scriptures to count the cost before clinging to Yeshua as His follower, He’s not throwing out some glib saying! He’s telling us to get ready to face enormous rejection from people all over the place, especially from those we care about the most. Oh, and don’t expect reciprocity (which is part of what (c)hesed is all about) or even gratitude from the ones we’ve sacrificed for… remember the 10 lepers (Luke 17:12-18)?
This sort of involvement in hurting people’s lives = abandonment and DEEP loneliness for the lover (but sometimes maybe the most fabulous joy!) I speak from experience. Yet, YHVH compels me to keep loving like this. If I am His, I have to…
Praying for Michael!
Praying!
This is a great song by Bill Withers. One of my family’s favorites. Sending out to you and yours in your time of need. And fits in rather nicely with your TW. In fact I’d say “perfectly “!!!
Oops. Forgot to paste.
Lean On Me
Please swallow your pride
If I have faith you need to borrow
For no one can fill those of your needs
That you won’t let show
If there is a load you have to bear
That you can’t carry
I’m right up the road
I’ll share your load
Lean on me, when you’re not strong
And I’ll be your friend
I’ll help you carry on
For it won’t be long
‘Til I’m gonna need
Somebody to lean on
You just call on me brother, when you need a hand
We all need somebody to lean on
I just might have a problem that you’ll understand
We all need somebody to lean on
Praying for Michael! And your family.
Prayers for Michael. I hope he’s on the mend.