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Years ago, I took a personality test that was designed to reveal various components of my persona that could be leveraged for professional success. According to this test, one way that I add value to an organization is through “responsibility.” This was not entirely surprising to me as I tend to stay up to date on my tasks and projects. However, what was stated next caused me pause. According to the test results, I had such a high degree of responsibility that I might have the tendency to take on things that weren’t under my purview. In other words, I tended to feel responsible for things that weren’t my responsibility.

While the test may be right and I am inclined to do this in my professional roles, I think this is a tendency that many more people face when it comes to our relationship with God and how we conduct our life. We wrongly think that we are responsible for creating the future we dream of or having the relationships that we desire. Tempted to assume responsibilities that aren’t meant for us, we fret and worry over what the future holds. We may even think that we can manipulate circumstances to ensure that things will turn out the way we want.  Worse yet, we may attempt to manipulate relationships to accomplish the same purpose.

The reality is that God has given us some responsibilities. He has called us to love Him and to love people. However, although these are responsibilities that are explicitly stated, I find that very few Christians are fretting over whether they are doing either of these things most effectively. Instead, we tend to worry about whether we have all the right answers to apologetics questions or whether our evangelism presentation was sufficiently polished. We worry about whether the decision we are making will lead to the future we want, or whether our kids will get every advantage in education or sports. We are anxious about finances, concerned about politics, and uneasy about an unclear future. In other words, we are bearing the burdens of our future instead of trusting it to the God Who is sovereign over all.

The problem with this is not only that we aren’t relying on God (which is a big problem), but that we are creating a myriad of other difficulties by trying to do a job that rightly belongs to Him. We are not equipped to take on these burdens, and when we attempt to do so, miserable failure ensues. And even in the moments when we think we do have some control, it doesn’t usually take long to realize that it was an illusion. If, as Matthew 6:27 states, we can’t add even an hour to our life through worry and fear, what makes us think that it accomplishes anything else?

The really sad thing is that often we convince ourselves that we are doing a good thing when we take on these concerns. “We’re just being prudent,” we say, and being prudent is certainly a virtue that Scripture extols. Or, “I just want things to be as good as they can be” we think, not trusting that God is far wiser in determining what is “good.” Additionally, if our thoughts are consumed with circumstances over which we have no control, than our thoughts aren’t centered on God. Consequently, if our thoughts, and our lives, aren’t centered on God, eventually the futility of trying to control the future will catch up with us, and we will realize we wasted precious time fretting over things we can’t control that we could have spent loving and serving Him And if we continue in our attempts to take on responsibilities that we were never intended to own, we will neglect the responsibilities we do have – to love and honor our Savior and to be a blessing to those He has called us to serve.

When I go on a trip, it is usually my goal to pack as minimally as possible. I want to carry the things that I need and nothing extraneous. This tendency isn’t surprising since I also try to take as few trips as possible when bringing in groceries, and I suspect I am not the only one. Both of these actions are working towards the same goal; for the first, I am trying to reduce how much I will have to lug around; for the second, I am trying to eliminate the number of times I will have to traverse from the kitchen to the car. In both scenarios, I am seeking to reduce the burden placed on me for seemingly mundane activities.

Most of us live this way. We spend considerable time and energy trying to figure out ways to make things easier on ourselves. We tend to view difficulties as things to be avoided and we are talented at discovering how to eliminate or reduce them. We work hard at avoiding hard work.

So it may strike many people as odd that some individuals knowingly and willingly take on additional burdens to bear. They actively seek to carry someone else’s load and to lessen the weight on others’ shoulders. And while it may seem out of the ordinary, we should also recognize that it is biblical. Christ has called us to bear one another’s burdens (Gal. 6:2) and if we are His children, we should follow His commands. What may seem odd to the world, should be normal for Christians.

As Andrew Murray points out in his book Absolute Surrender this is an uniquely Christian endeavor. Most people approach life’s cares and concerns as I approach packing – let’s remove everything that we can and make the things we must carry as light as possible. The Christian, however, increases their load because they take on the cares and concerns of their brothers and sisters in Christ. They are intentionally and purposely taking the weight off the shoulders of others and putting it on their own.

We see a vivid example of this in Numbers 11:16-17. Moses was responsible for leading the people of Israel after they escaped from Egypt, however this job was too great for one person to do alone. When Moses expressed to God the extent of his burden, God commanded that other men be brought forward to help Moses carry the load. Noteworthily, these individuals had to be proven leaders – in other words they were to be men of character. Helping to bear Moses’s burden was an honor and only those who had demonstrated that they were worthy of this prestigious responsibility would be given the task.

While it may seem paradoxical to live this way, it is also a privilege to do so. There is blessing in loving others so well that their cares and concerns become your own. We experience a glimpse into the work of Jesus who took our burdens upon Himself. We understand more fully how we can cast our burdens upon Him, as we invite others to share their burdens with us. We celebrate and we weep with them, and we understand more deeply what it means to be part of the family of God.

The biggest blessing, however, is that as we bear the burdens of our brothers and sisters, we know that we don’t carry it alone. We, in turn, can cast those burdens upon God (I Pet. 5:7, Ps. 55:22) and intercede to Him on their behalf (Ro. 8:34). We take on His yoke (Mt. 11:28-30) and allow Him to lead and direct us on how we are to love those whose cares we bear. The weight of others’ difficulties doesn’t push us down, but instead draws us closer to Him. We may take on their burdens, but in doing so, we find ourselves blessed.