Burdens not to carry

Never allow the empathy for pain to becomes pain's reward and pain's attention. The empathy is not for the pain but for the person. Do not become encumbered in their story and their reasonings for their present state, rather carry them. Often, people will want you to carry their burdens, to do their work for them, to give them a brief respite, only for them to pick them up once you have laid them down. They had no intention of giving them up. Many people talk around themselves but there is a nugget inside that needs to be got at. Burdens and 'crosses' are used to avoid all this, the heart of the matter: we speak of the burden rather than the person carrying the burden.

All burdens when carried by a follower have one destination: Golgotha. To the cross the burden must go. We can no longer negotiate another destiny for these burdens; we are not taxi drivers or social workers giving brief comfort. Eternal rest is where we come from and where we go to. To give brief comfort as we see fit is to reinforce that burden's weight and power over the prisoner. Do not carry a burden unless its carrier wants to be rid of it once and for all. To the cross you must go and end all suffering and oppression derived from this burden. The carrier and the burden are tied together with a yolk. To carry another's burden when no eternal rest is given is to subject yourself to the same burden and to come under the same slavery. You were not made for slavery but for righteousness.