Ron Hutchcraft Ministries - Someone to Share the Load - #4253

Wednesday, April 30, 2003

Our ministry had been donated some great used office furniture - and a lot of it. The only problem was that our new Ministry Headquarters was still under construction, and for a short time, we had nowhere to put the furniture. The men who delivered it left it outside a barn we we're remodeling for temporary office space. The next day, thunderstorms were brewing. I was on a ministry trip and my wife couldn't reach any guys to help her cover this newly arrived, soon-to-be soaked furniture. She managed to stretch this big blue tarp over the furniture - except for the last corner, which this stiff north wind kept blowing away. Well, my resourceful, farmgirl wife saw an old iron gate, leaning against the building. It was the only thing around that was heavy enough to keep that tarp down. With the thunder rolling in the distance and the dark clouds approaching, she managed to get her back underneath that heavy gate - and to somehow drag it, with everything she had, over to the edge of the tarp. I couldn't believe it when I got home. She was tired and she was sore, but she said God gave her strength. But she should have never had to carry that heavy load alone.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Someone to Share the Load."

All around us, there are people who are carrying a heavy load they should not have to carry alone. But most of us are so preoccupied with our own burdens that we have little or no time to lighten someone else's. And yet, we who follow Jesus, are following a Savior of whom the Bible says, "When He saw the crowds, He had compassion on them..." (Matthew 9:36 ) This is the Savior who, even in the agony of His awful death on the cross, was comforting His mother, responding to the cry of the penitent thief, and forgiving those who nailed Him there. Even when His burden was the greatest, He was still caring about the burdens of other people.

In our word for today from the Word of God in 1 Peter 3:8 , God commands us to live that same way. He says, "Finally, all of you, live in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble." Compassion - Well, I heard a grief counselor define it this way: "your pain in my heart." Which implies that you notice they're hurting and you open your heart to feel some of what they're feeling. It's getting your eyes off yourself enough that you can participate in both their sadness and their gladness - or as Romans 12:15 says, "Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn."

We live in a fast-paced, self-centered, drive-through world, pretty self-absorbed most of the time. Meanwhile, right there in your office, in your homeroom, at the club, right next door is someone going through one of life's long, dark valleys. If they know someone who belongs to Jesus - someone like you - they should never have to carry that load alone. Jesus put you there to bring His love to their life.

If you've let your heart get hard, you won't be able to feel someone else's pain. If you're too busy to stop for people, you will miss the divine assignments all around you. Maybe you're the other extreme - you try to pick up everybody's burdens. That's going to eventually burn you out and you won't be able to be there for anybody. The way to be able to be compassionate without being destroyed is to be totally focused on the person that you're with, letting God help you feel their pain in your heart. But, then, after you've been there for them, you've got to unload that burden they just gave you - onto the shoulders of a God who can fix what you can't fix and whose got the resources to carry everyone's burden. You don't. Don't try to. You're not their Messiah. Jesus is.

Right now - possibly as close as people in your own family - there is someone who's trying to carry a crushing load alone. Jesus has put you there for them - to let them feel His love, through you. Look up from your busy schedule, look up from your own burdens, and look at that person near you who is stumbling under their load. They need Jesus right now. And you're His arms to hold them up and share the load.