set my sole on fire

Galatians 6:1-5

Brothers, 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.

So there we were, a nice campsite with a beautiful view of this incredible lake, Lake Manateau. It had been the longest week of many of our lives, we hit some terrible weather and finally this day the weather broke. The sun came out, and the trip took a turn for the better. We had renewed energy and only a couple days left. We had been in the Canadian Wilderness for 5 days now and we were wondering if we would ever get out… but this evening was completely different. It was beautiful. Everything was better. To celebrate we built a nice big fire. We had been wet and cold for days so the chance to have a big fire was so welcome. Kyle ryan went and collected more wood, and more wood, and more wood…  we had so much wood. That fire was huge and Kyle and I sat with a few people talking about life and everything, admiring the beautiful night, even admiring the beautiful fire. Until Kyle pointed out that this fire was so pretty that it was even turning different colors. Uh oh! Those colors were coming from Julia’s shoes that were drying by the fire… well, there WERE drying by the fire, but our fire got so big and so hot that now they were part of the fire! Opps. Oh, and these were borrowed shoes.

The next day Kyle felt bad and Julia made him feel worse… so he decided to make it up to her by carrying her burden, he carried her bag…   but that was not enough… he also carried her! He carried her for a whole portage…  it was funny, but he owed her.

Sometimes we find ourselves in a place where we need a little help carrying our burden. I’ve been in those situations on the trail where someone needs you to grab a little weight and sometimes you need someone to grab a little bit of your weight.

It’s like that in real life too. Sometimes our burdens get really heavy. Sometimes we get all this stuff piling up on us and it simply becomes too much for us to handle on our own. That’s why God put people into our lives. We need each other to carry each others burdens.

Jesus was very open about this, he offers us his shoulders when he says “take my yolk up you”, because our burden is heavy and his yolk is light - He will help us carry that burden but He designed it so that we need to rely on others to carry those burdens as well.

Have you been helping anyone carry their burden lately? Are you letting someone carry yours?

Answer This

1.         Name a time that you needed help physically. You needed to rely on others to help you.

2.         What about spiritually, what is a time that you had to rely on others spiritually?

3.         Bear one another's _________, and so ________ the law of Christ.

4. Take a minute and journal about what you read.

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Written by Jeff Harkins