Flax Shirts and Bearing Burdens
I found a little book here in the eMseni library called Up From Slavery, and it's the autobiography of Booker T Washington, who was a great American leader born into slavery, but became a great leader in America and a great advocate for education and equality.
In the first few chapters of his book, he talks about the very rough conditions that he grew up in. And he says here on page 18 that the most trying ordeal he was forced to endure as a slave boy was wearing a flex shirt. And he says “no torture except maybe pulling a tooth is equal to putting on a new flex shirt for the first time” because it was like having 100 small pinpoints in contact with your flesh.
But of course that was all that they had to wear. And so he talks about putting his on. And then he says this:
A Picture of Sacrificial Love
“My brother John, several years older than I, performed one of the most generous acts that I had ever heard of one doing for another. On several occasions when I was being forced to wear a new flex shirt, he generously agreed to put it on in my stead and wear it for several days until it was broken in.”
This act of his brother’s had a big impact on him. And for me, this kind of embodied the Christian love that you and I are called to share with one another. Who was Paul who said in Galatians 6:2 “carry each other's burdens”? Which is exactly what John did for his brother here.
Christ Who Carried Our Burdens
In fact, isn't that what Jesus did for us when He went to the cross? He took on our pain, took on our punishments. Give thanks today that you serve a God who took on the punishment that you deserve, put on your flex shirt, so to speak.
And then look for ways today that you can help somebody else. Who knows what an impact you might have if you put on someone else's flex shirt, and carry someone else's burdens for them.
