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5 Reason to Be a Burden

Five Reasons to Be a Burden
Photo by OC Gonzalez on Unsplash

 

I’m sure you’ve heard this phrase before, “I just hate to be a burden” or, “she doesn’t want to be a burden.” A friend once even told me she admires people who don’t want to be a burden to others.

I don’t.

When we say we don’t want to be a burden, there’s usually lies fueling it, lies rooted in our worth.

Those lies tell us that speaking needs places our worth on the table for examination. Am I worth the time, attention, and energy of others? Will they still want me if I appear weak, needy, or foolish?

Some of us respond to the lies by diminishing ourselves. Others of us (ahem, looking in the mirror), respond by determining that we will never leave the worthiness question for others to answer.

And yet, we should let others carry us.

Here’s why:

5 Reason to Be a Burden

  1.  It dispels the lies about our worth.

    When we choose to offer our needs to others, rather than stumbling on alone, we break the power of the voices that tell us it’s not ok. We declare ourselves human and worthy of space in the world. That’s a brave and beautiful thing.

  2. We find healing.

    Not only healing but rest, strength, grace, hope, and help. We need each other-that’s how God made us. I sometimes hear people express an idea that all they really need is God. But what God gives us, He often gives through others. The help we need comes from God, through others.

  3. We give others an opportunity to use their gifts

    when we ask them to carry our burdens. Withholding our needs from others robs them. Ministering to us might be the way God wants to use them today. Who are we to deny them that?

  4. Our humility invites others.

    Sometimes it seems we’re all wounded soldiers, triaging ourselves, insisting someone else needs more attention. But when one of us cries out for help, it frees the rest of us to cry as well. The enemy wants to keep us silently wounded. But we defy him and lead others to healing if we ask for it ourselves.

  5. Bottom line? It’s Biblical.

    Galatians 6:2, “Carry each others’ burdens, for in this way you fulfill the law of Christ.” What is the law of Christ? To love God and love others. When we offer and receive the weightiness of our burdens, we love.

“In their created limitations, Adam and Eve were held together in a bond of naked vulnerability . . . that is because in God’s design we do not manage our needs, we confess them. Intimacy demands hearing and telling the truth . . . [and it] recognizes that we will be inadequate to respond to the needs that are shared. We don’t mend each other’s brokenness, we just hold it tightly.”  Craig Barnes, Yearnings

In God’s design we do not manage our needs, we confess them.

We don’t manage needs, we share them. And when we do, it’s not anyone’s responsibility to fix us; we simply ask them to hold us. It requires vulnerability and humility-both challenging, both necessary.

So be a burden, today, if you need to be. Confess your need. Let someone carry you. This is how God made us. Click To Tweet This is how we love and are loved.

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Open the Door to Others

Open the Door to Others
Photo by Philipp Berndt on Unsplash

“To open yourself to another person, to stop lying about your loneliness and your fears, to be honest about your affections, and to tell others how much they mean to you-this openness is the triumph of the child of God over the Pharisee and a sign of the dynamic presence of the Spirit.” (Brennan Manning, Abba’s Child).

We lie about our loneliness and our fears.

They are hidden beneath smiles, activity, and bravado. We ignore aches and push down anxieties because we believe the people who present themselves to others without these trappings are more acceptable, desirable, and welcome.

And that’s how the loneliness and fears grow. They lie to us about our worth. Their grip on us tightens and reinforces our distance from those who would really know our hearts.

Those lies battle with the truth that we need others, and the truth that real strength lies not in hiding, but in vulnerability. Life is not found behind closed doors.

In an unguarded moment not long ago, I moved toward a friend. I clung to a glimmer of hope that maybe I wasn’t alone; maybe she felt it too. We began a hesitant companionship, marked with vulnerability hangovers from fear we overshared. Several times one or the other of us nearly canceled a lunch date because the thought of baring ourselves felt too heavy. But slowly, we pushed past our fears toward each other.

After a while, we thought maybe we weren’t alone. Maybe other women wanted, needed, a place to be raw, real, seen, and heard too. So we invited a few. And they came.

Four of us are on a journey of opening to each other. Between work and travel and family, we carve out times together where we simply ask, “how are you?” and make space for more than rote answers.

We have, each of us, wondered if we fit in with the others.

As we open doors into deeper recesses of our hearts, we navigate fear.

We brave disappointing one another with our honest selves.

Together, we invite each other’s childlike selves to show up, share wounds that need care, and receive the tenderness and empathy we need. We share where our hearts are in the process of being awkwardly awake and alive to the mess of life, parenting, friendship, and ministry.

One week, a flurry of text messages appeared about getting together. I chimed in that I couldn’t come, and received no response. With a sinking feeling in my gut, I watched as they excitedly planned time without me.

The loneliness and fear called back to me, telling me how foolish it was to believe I could leave them behind. They whispered of my lack. Told me I was dispensable. Noted how quickly I was passed over.

When our group sat down in our booth at Panera the next week, I swallowed hard and spoke my lies. These friends listened, understood, and opened the door for me to reclaim my space with them.

The triumph of the child over the Pharisee often feels less like victory and more like heart thumping hope as we bring our true selves to each other, vulnerable and exposed.

I need these women, and they need me. While the enemy conspires with a thousand little lies to keep us from being open with others, the Spirit whispers to us that it is worth it, this baring of our souls.

He bids us come with our childlike selves, and believe there is a place for us.

Needing others is not weakness. It is not something to be despised or masked, but rather something to be embraced and celebrated.

There is a place for each of us. Open the door.

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Ask God For the Pony

Ask for the Pony
photo by Cristian Newman

Every fall, kids make wish lists of all that they want for Christmas. When our kids were young, I feared Toys-R-Us. I was terrified they’d set their hearts on something huge we couldn’t afford. One year there was a giant toy pony that kids could actually ride. I think it cost $400. Ridiculous.

Years ago, my friend’s son was celebrating his 4th birthday. Just before he blew out the candles, we said, “Make a wish, Luke.” Without skipping a beat, he took a breath and said, “I wish I could fly,” then blew.

That’s how kids think. I want the pony. I want to fly.

Somewhere along the way, we make our lists more reasonable. More practical. We stick to the budget. That’s good in some respects, but there’s an aspect of how kids ask that we aren’t meant to lose.

What are children like?

They are weak, needy, and unashamed. Boldly they bring their needs and make them known. They’re trusting. They don’t analyze whether or not the ask is too much or out of line-they’re just honest with desire. Faith that their parents will take care of them drives their asks.

In the gospels, I see Jesus inviting this kind of boldness in our relationship with God. He’s always asking people to come closer, calling out their desire, “What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus honors faith, even when it’s just a desperate grab at his cloak. He makes space for children, calling us to be like them. We too are invited to come and ask.

So why don’t we? Why don’t we go to God with all our hopes and dreams and wishes and ask big?

The vulnerability of audacity

Prayer is vulnerable. It’s a raw and scary prospect to bring all our desires before someone who could choose not to fulfill them in the way we hope. We are tempted to hedge our prayers and only ask for what we think he’s willing to do, what’s in the budget. We wonder if we’re asking for the right things in the right ways so much that we end up asking for nothing at all. It’s easier not to ask than to ask and be disappointed.

But prayer is about so much more than getting what we want. It’s about drawing closer in trust to our father, letting him have our whole hearts, and in the process being shaped to his will. He can’t do that when we hold back.

Be childlike

I now try to be more childlike in my prayers. I go to God bare hearted, telling him everything I wish were true, everything I hope will happen, everything I want. Go honest, raw, angry, scared, confused, hopeful, searching. We don’t have to censor ourselves, but instead, trust that he can see through our aching.

As we do, he sorts out the aching. He is at work in these areas. Listen to him remind us of what’s true. We will feel his delight. He pours out peace and comfort. When we bring our whole hearts, he can fully sift them and give us the right perspective. It leads to gratitude and worship.

What’s on your list today?

Be audacious, bold, needy, honest. Be childlike in your faith and your trust. Ask for the pony. Tell him you want to fly. Bring your whole heart to your father who loves you more than life and trust that he will give you what is good.

“Which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” -Matthew 7:9-11

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Lest you forget

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“And when the Lord your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers . . . with great and good cities that you did not build, and houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant – and when you eat and are full, then take care lest you forget the Lord.” Deuteronomy 6:10-12

The first time these verses struck me (as Christians why are we always being “struck” by scripture? It seems so violent) was our 5th year overseas. I was in a great place. My mojo was strong – the kids were getting out of the tough toddler stage, my language skills were decent, I was able to use my gifts in fulfilling ways; in short, I loved my life. So I knew it was going to change.

I knew it, not because I think God is out to spoil my fun, but because of these verses which I had been studying at the time. I knew I was in a place where I was really comfortable. I didn’t feel like I needed God. I was in danger of forgetting Him. So God saw fit to move us, four months later, to Singapore, where . . . well, let’s say I felt my need.

But that was then. In reading this again now, I think of our current situation. This is the land o’ plenty, and I feel like I could get pretty used to it. I like showers with consistent water temperature and washing machines large enough to hold a person. I like blue skies and non-threatening traffic. I like speaking English. I like friendly Minnesotans.

So how do I not forget God here? How do I stay aware that even in the seemingly best, most comfortable, most easy places I am in desperate need for Him? I don’t have the answer to that yet; it’s what I’m pondering this morning. I just know that He is God here as much as He was there, and I need Him.

Continue ReadingLest you forget

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