March 10
Verse of the Day for March 10
Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.Galatians 6:2 KJV
The Key of Stillness · Day 10 of 31
Reflection · 4 min read
Bear Ye One Another's Burdens
Three verses apart, Paul appears to contradict himself, and generations of readers have noticed.
Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.
Then in verse five: every man shall bear his own burden. Which is it.
It is two different words. The first is a crushing weight, the kind that is too much for one person by definition. The second is the word for a soldier's pack — the load you are issued and expected to carry.
So the instruction is not confused. Your own pack is yours; nobody can walk your road for you. But when something falls on a person that no single person is built to lift, that is when the others come.
Most of us get this exactly backwards. We ask for help with the pack, which nobody can carry, and we refuse help with the crushing thing because we have decided it is our own to manage.
Your pack is yours.The crushing thing is not.
Knowing which of the two you are holding is most of the wisdom here, and you are usually the worst judge of it.
Ask someone who has watched you this year.
Carry this today
What are you refusing help with because you think it is yours?
Pray
Read Galatians 6:1–5
1Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted. 2Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ. 3For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself. 4But let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another. 5For every man shall bear his own burden.
Keep praying
Reflection by Collins Asein, from the daily devotionals in the PrayerKey app. Bible text: King James Version.