Bear one another’s burdens …. each one shall bear his own load.

One of the pictures the Scriptures paint of the church, is of a hospital. So this includes physical healing, but also healing of broken hearts, freedom from addictions and the pains of the past. So often we are prisoners of the past, but the Lord came both to heal the broken hearted, and to set the prisoners free (Luke 4:18). The above extract from Galatians 6:1 – 4, explains both our individual, and our corporate responsibility.

God will not, and we should not either, do for others what they can easily do for themselves. So that’s what it means to bear your own load. One way to think of this is we need to carry our own backpacks. On the other hand there are things that are just too heavy for us to carry, things that would crush us under their weight. These are the burdens we are admonished to bear with our brothers and sisters.

I am coming across burdens that are too heavy to bear more and more, in various aspects of the inner healing ministry to which the Lord has called me. Sometimes things that have happened in the past are so painful, we bury them deep within our psyche. We then post a notice saying “No entry!” But when we bury our emotional wounds like this, be it from things we have done, or from things that were done to us, they fester.

As in the physical, so in the spiritual. What I’m saying is when a physical wound is infected, he needs to be cauterized. The same is true in the spiritual. In particular that which is buried needs to be brought to the light, and this is likely to be both scary, and painful. More often than not, these things are burdens that are too heavy to bear alone, rather than loads we can be expected to bear. And when we have received healing, we are called to come alongside our brothers and sisters, and help them.

Very often, the people the Lord equips to help others with their burdens, are those who have either made the same mistakes, or have suffered the same abuse. In particular former alcoholics are likely the best equipped to minister to those who have alcohol-related problems. Similarly the recovered spouse, or child of an alcoholic, is likely best equipped to minister to a spouse or a child who is currently going through the same sort of agony.

We have a saying in celebrate recovery, a Christ centred 12-step program in which I am involved, it is “God never wastes a hurt.” In particular if you have recovered from some hurt or abuse, or if you have, with His and others help, managed to get free from some sin or addiction, then God wants to use you to minister to others who are where you once were. The question is “Are you wiling?”

Father, You tell us in Your Word, that we are to walk in the light as You are in the light (1 John 1:7). In particular part of what we need to do, is to bring things to the light that are hidden. Father help us, help your church, to move more and more into this ministry, where in the light we are healed from guilt and shame and from all the abuses of the past. Have mercy upon us Lord, for we have failed miserably in being your hands and feet in cooperation with You in healing the broken hearted, and setting the captives free. Wake us up Lord, and move was out in Jesus Name Amen