Not long ago I was faced with the anxiety and pain involved in helping other fellow friends. A few things started to emerge as I got deeper into their situations. At times I felt anxious and at other moments I felt like there was a knot inside my stomach. It took me a few days to emerge back into a place where I could breathe oxygen, relax and pay attention to other aspects of my own life. I guess for a moment a few dynamics came together at the same time:

I wanted to help.
I understood my calling to include helping others, so I dove into it.
The nature of the crisis others were experiencing was pressing—as it is usually with crisis.
I was doing a lot on my own to help bridge the necessary resources to help these friends.
Little by little my actions created less space for these friends to experience appropriate consequences and take responsibility for things they were to be responsible for.
I did not involve others in order to diversify the help that could be offered more efficiently.
I ended up running on “me” rather than God, and I felt drowned with little space to breathe.

Can you relate to this? Have you ever been in a situation with a friend, relative or brother in Christ where you just drowned in the process of trying to help? Times like this eventually feel more like a burden than the light and easy yoke Jesus promised we would experience with Him, in Matthew 11:30.

Perhaps we should go back to the passage where Jesus spoke those words and see what I was missing and what you may be missing. Here is what He said in verses 28-30:

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Whether you are already “heavy laden” or nearing that place, it is clear that we are to carry something. The question is, what are we carrying? Whose yoke are we carrying? The one our friends handed to us? One that is imposed on us? The one I believe I should pick up? Or the one Jesus assigns to each one of us in a given situation? It is obvious from Jesus’ words that what characterizes the experience of carrying His yoke is a form of “rest,” not a burden. What are you experiencing as you carry other peoples’ burdens? And, why do you think that is the case?

Another reality worth observing is that there are a couple of attitudes Jesus instructs us to imitate as we carry the yoke He gives to us. I believe these two attitudes are required in order to carry the light yoke He offers to us. Gentleness and lowliness of heart (humility). I find it interesting that gentleness and humility go out the door the moment I take charge of a situation. Yet Jesus’ way of serving and loving others was predominantly shaped and characterized by gentleness and humility. Gentleness and humility have a way of helping us identify both our personal limitations and God’s unlimited power and provision.

So our challenge is to make sure we carry the yoke Jesus assigns to us—this defines how far we go to help others—and to learn from Him the attitudes that keeps us in the right place for the good of others and our own.

--Diego Cuartas