I don’t want to be a burden
Have you heard someone say something like that, as you watch them struggle on, gently but firmly turning down every offer of help? “Oh, I couldn’t do that. I wouldn’t want to be a burden on anyone.” Perhaps you have even found yourself saying the same? There are people only too willing to help: to bring meals, to do the shopping, to provide lifts. And yet it seems kinder, even more spiritual, to manage on my own.
And then I run into a verse like Galatians 6:2: “Carry each other’s burdens.” That rather implies that some of us will have burdens that others can carry for us – and that we will let them do so – or else we can hardly obey that particular command. True, we’re also told not to be idle or lazy, to sponge off the generosity of others. But I strongly suspect, in a church like ours, that is not a danger that many of us are in. I would certainly fall into the trying-to-be-self-sufficient “I don’t want to be a burden” category.
The thing is, God has made us dependent. He is the only independent being in the universe; the rest of us are dependent. We are dependent on God, first of all, for everything we have and are. And he has also made us dependent on other people; we were born dependent, and we will die dependent. Independence may be the goal of the world we live in; God’s way is one of interdependence. Here is another opportunity for us to show the world around us a better way, God’s way.