Bearing Another's Burdens

In the student ministry at my church, we're going through the book of Galatians. Last night, my student pastor taught on chapter 6 verse 2.

Bearing another's burdens, sounds easy, doesn't it?

When you think of this, more than likely you think of helping each other out, but what about things that, well, you can't exactly help with? Like take family problems, you can't exactly help out there. How do you help a friend carry these types of burdens? A friend of mine asked me this question, and I realized I didn't know what to tell her. I had no idea what to say...

I began where my student pastor was last night, Galatians 6.

"Bear another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ." Galatians 6:2

What does this mean exactly? Well, I used a large study Bible(no, really, its gigantic.) and looked up the cross-references for this verse.

Romans 15:1-2 "We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each of is please his neighbor for his good, to build him up."

Build him up. Hold your friend above yourself. Love him, pray for him. How you help your friend going through something like that, how you help them carry that burden, is you don't allow them to become discouraged. You pray with them. You let them talk, if they want to talk, and you try to understand. You don't allow them to get down, no matter how hard things are.

You say 'but what if I don't want to listen? What if I have hard problems of my own in my life?'

Philipians 2:3b-4 "...but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others."

That answer your question? You need to realize it's not all about you.

Not that you don't have to think about your own problems. That's the best part about having close friends, in having a close small group. They share with you and you share with them, and you all help carry each other's burdens.

When you don't have this, the closeness, it makes it difficult to share with one another. I know this from experience. If all you have are 'shallow' friendships, it's hard to tell all your problems. All you get is awkward silence.

You want to have a 'David and Jonathan friendship', a 'David and Jonathan small group'.

You know about these two guys, David and Goliath? Jonathan, son of Saul? These two guys were really close. It says 'The soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.' (1 Samuel 18:1)

Can you say that you have a friendship like this? Where you can go against everything you know to help your friend? That's what Jonathan did for David. He went almost as far as risking his life for his friend. Just like Jesus did for us. Jesus sacrificed His life to save ours.
That's what I call close friends.

I hope one day I can say that my small group and my friends, that we are close. Even closer than we are now. It's going to take a lot from me. I've gotta let myself trust people again. I know that these people are people I can trust. To truly be what God wants a small group to be, we need to be close.