Why You Might Not Need “MORE” Strength…
Feel like you need more strength for what you’re facing right now?
What if I told you that is NOT true? But you might just need to carry things differently instead?
Here me out on this because I speak from experience…
God has never once called you to someone else's life.
Not someone else’s marriage, kids, health battle, or calling. Not another’s particular brand of hard.
YOURS.
The strength God gives you is custom. Specific. Personally assigned by a God who knew exactly what your days would hold before you lived a single one of them! (Doesn’t that blow your mind?!?!?)
God never hands out strength in bulk. He gives it according to the assignment you have for EACH day.
There is no “Costco” level stock up on strength. We need to go to God every day for it.
Galatians 6 has a unique tension: two verses that at first glance look like a flat out contradiction.
Verse 2: "Bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ."
Verse 5: "For each one shall bear his own load."
So which is it Paul? Bear each other's burdens or bear your own?
In the original Greek these are two completely different words describing two completely different things.
The burden in verse 2 is the word "baros." A crushing, overwhelming weight. The kind that brings a person to their knees. The kind that was never meant to be carried alone.
The load in verse 5 is the word "phortion." A personal pack. Like a soldier's kit. The specific assignment God placed on YOUR back for YOUR journey.
Paul isn't contradicting himself at all.
He is describing two simultaneous realities of what it means to follow Jesus.
You have a phortion. A personal load that is yours. God assigned it specifically to you and He gave you specific strength for it. (You just have to make sure you stay close to God to receive it!)
AND you are called to look up from your own load long enough to help someone whose baros has become crushing.
Both. At the same time.
Neither one cancels the other out. In fact, the latter can help refresh you to carry the former more easily!!
In my sickest season I was in serious daily pain. The kind that makes your world very small, dark, and heavy. I had plenty of my own baros to deal with.
And in the middle of that season I made a decision to put my issues aside because they honestly felt like way too much.
Whenever the Holy Spirit nudged me to reach out to someone to encourage them I did it.
I wasn't trying to be noble. Seriously, I was just trying to get my mind off my own problems for a little while.
But what happened every single time completely altered how I look at burdens.
Without knowing they were struggling I would reach out to whoever God laid on my heart and they would tell me my timing was perfect.
Except it wasn't my timing at all.
It was God’s!!
Over and over. Person after person. I would send a message thinking I was just being obedient to a nudge and they would say "I cannot believe you reached out today. I needed this so much more than you will ever know!"
2 Corinthians 1:3-4 says God comforts us in all our troubles SO THAT we can comfort others with the same comfort we ourselves have received.
SO THAT…
Your hard season is not just something to survive. It is equipping you with a specific kind of comfort that only comes from having been in that particular valley. And someone out there needs exactly that comfort.
From exactly YOU.
He lightened two burdens at once.
My friend's crushing baros got lighter because I showed up at exactly the right moment.
And my phortion got lighter too. Because the moment I took my eyes off myself and put them on someone else God met me in a way He simply couldn't when I was only focused on my problems.
That is not a coincidence.
That is a design feature of the body of Christ.
We were never meant to be self-sufficient islands. God deliberately built us to need each other. Your unique strength isn't just FOR you. It is also FOR the person right next to you whose knees are about to buckle.
No believer is exempt from this. No one gets a free pass!!
Not the sick one. Not the busy one. Not the one who feels like she has absolutely nothing left to give. (If you feel that way you probably aren’t letting anyone help carry your baros!!)
I’ve probably heard at least a dozen stories of people dying from cancer who were incredible witnesses for Christ while they were dying. That witness brought others to Jesus.
The world wants us to think we are exempt from shining our light when storms are raging. But seriously, if there is ANYTHING I’ve learned is THAT is when God’s light within us shines the brightest!!
So let me ask you two honest questions today.
Are you carrying your phortion with the strength God specifically gave you for YOUR days?
And when was the last time you looked up from your own load long enough to help someone whose burden has become a baros?
Because in God’s world, carrying other’s burdens makes YOUR pack lighter!
In passionate purpose,
Dorothy
Father,
Thank You for knowing exactly what I can carry. You have never once given me a phortion without also providing the strength to carry it.
Forgive me for the times I have looked at someone else's load and wished for a different one. Forgive me for the times I have looked at my own and decided I didn't have what it takes. Because you promise to be with us and strengthen us. Both are lies and I am done agreeing with them.
Open my eyes to who around me is carrying a baros right now. A weight they were never meant to carry alone. Show me who to reach out to. Give me the words. And give me the obedience to act on the nudge even when my own load feels heavy.
Use my hard season for more than just me!
I want to be someone who fulfills the law of Christ. Who decides to be obedient. Who looks up from her own hard season long enough to see that someone right next to her needs exactly the comfort You have already given me.
In Jesus' mighty name,
Amen.
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