Backpacks or burdens: when to ask for (and give) help—and when not to?
For most people I know, asking for help is one of the most difficult things to do. Some of that challenge is particularly American: we were raised on the notion of “rugged individualism.”
Some of it’s also a lack of humility: we don’t like admitting our inability to do something (especially if we believe it is our responsibility).
And sometimes it’s because we’re sensitive to asking for too much from others—perhaps because we ourselves have been presumed upon by someone else in the past.
Conversely, it’s also difficult to know when one should not help, as in the case of enabling something unhealthy for another person or when doing so is to one’s own detriment.
The Bible is replete with verses teaching us to help others. One passage presents what at first seems to be a set of self-contradictory statements:
1Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. 2 Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. 3 For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. 4 But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor. 5 For each will have to bear his own load.
—Galatians 6:1-5 ESV, emphasis added
Which is it, Paul? Do we bear one another’s burdens or do we bear our own loads?
The original language proves helpful in parsing out this apparent contradiction:
- The word rendered “burden” in verse 2 is βάρος. It refers to a load that is weighty to carry, either physically or figuratively.
- The word rendered as “load” is verse 5 is φορτίον. It’s the same word Jesus uses when He says that “[His] yoke is easy, and [His] burden is light” (Matthew 11:30). One might say that this kind of responsibility is real but manageable.
Instead of presenting us with a contradiction, this set of verses offers what I think is a helpful guide in living amidst community:
- We are to help one another with our burdens—those circumstances in our lives that are too weighty to carry on our own.
- We are to manage our own loads—those parts of our lives that God has charged us to be responsible for through the circumstances He’s allowed in our lives.
When we’re asking
We can—and I’d argue even should—ask for help from those around us in carrying our burdens. This is the way of the Body, of community, of interdependence. When we ask, we invite others to share life with us. When we try to bear our burdens alone, we signal—perhaps unwittingly—that we don’t need or want fellowship with others, leading ultimately to loneliness and isolation. At the same time, we need to rightly appraise whether in asking for help we are shirking the responsibility God’s asked us to take for ourselves (which creates an unhealthy demand on the people in our lives).
When we’re being asked
Before agreeing to help, it’s appropriate to prayerfully evaluate whether the request is a burden (something beyond that person’s capacity to carry alone) or merely a load. If “enablement” can be defined as doing for someone what they can do for themselves, it’s neither loving nor truly helpful to do it for them. It might be a load or backpack they need to learn to carry and intervening might circumvent their path to health. When someone needs help carrying a true burden, we similarly need to appraise the degree to which we are able to help—according to the capacity God has given us. But to “fulfill the law of Christ” we must be willing to step into their need even if it feels like a sacrifice, inconvenience, or undesirable.
Above all
The notion of interdependence and community is complex and nuanced. By definition, it will always be idiosyncratic to the people involved. We must hold—simultaneously and in tension—the needs of the other, our own capacity, and the sacrificial call of Christ on our lives. While we’d all likely prefer to have a formula to apply, the only true answer is prayer. When we submit our relationships and interactions to Him, we can trust Him to lead us whether we’re asking for help or deciding how to best provide it. He will equip us to fulfill His good plans for all of His people.