Romans 12:4 For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function,(ESV)
Yesterday, we looked at the materials we use to build our lives. The people around us matter.
They influence what we consider normal. Their wisdom can strengthen us. Their foolishness can become expensive. Their courage can make courage easier. Their compromises can slowly make compromise seem reasonable.
But choosing good materials is only part of building a good house.
You also have to know where to put them.
A window may be made from excellent glass. That still doesn’t make it a support beam.
A piece of lumber may be perfectly straight, incredibly strong, and exactly what the builder wanted. That doesn’t mean it belongs in every part of the house.
Some materials carry weight.
Some keep the weather out.
Some allow light in.
Some create boundaries.
Some provide access.
Some simply make the house more comfortable or beautiful.
None of those purposes is unimportant. But confusing them can become dangerous.
The same thing can happen with people.
Sometimes the problem isn’t that we’ve allowed a bad person into our lives.
Sometimes we have put a good person in the wrong place.
Paul wrote to the Romans that the members of one body “do not all have the same function.”
His point was about the body of Christ and the different gifts God gives His people. The hand isn’t defective because it can’t see. The eye isn’t useless because it can’t walk. Different members serve different purposes.
That principle should make us careful about the roles we expect people to fill.
Not everyone who loves you should advise you.
Not everyone you trust in one area should be trusted in every area.
Not everyone who has known you for a long time should have authority over where your life goes next.
Not everyone who helps carry one burden is equipped to carry another.
A person can be wonderful and still be completely wrong for the place we’ve given them.
We often confuse affection with qualification.
Someone loves us, so we assume they know what’s best for us.
Someone has been loyal, so we assume they’re wise.
Someone is older, so we assume they should lead.
Someone is successful, so we assume they understand how we should build.
Someone knows the Bible, so we assume every piece of advice they give must come from God.
Someone has been our friend for decades, so we give their words a weight they may never have earned.
That doesn’t require them to be manipulative.
They may simply be standing where we placed them.
The builder is responsible for placement.
If I use glass where a beam belongs, I can’t blame the glass when the roof begins to sag.
That’s an uncomfortable truth because it means some relational problems can’t be solved simply by deciding whether another person is good or bad.
Sometimes we need to ask why we gave them the responsibility they currently carry.
Consider how easily this happens.
A parent spends years making decisions for a child.
That’s part of parenting.
But eventually that child becomes an adult, builds a family, and begins making decisions that belong to a new household.
The parent may still be wise.
The parent may still be loving.
The parent may still deserve honor.
But the structure has changed.
The person hasn’t necessarily become bad.
Their placement has changed.
The same thing can happen with friendship.
A friend may be excellent company when life is easy.
They may be funny, generous, loyal, and enjoyable to be around.
But when a marriage is struggling, financial decisions must be made, or someone’s faith is being tested, companionship is no longer the only thing being asked of them.
Now weight is being placed on the relationship.
Can it carry it?
That’s a different question.
Even pastors can be placed incorrectly.
A good pastor can teach, counsel, encourage, correct, and help someone understand Scripture.
But a pastor was never meant to replace a person’s conscience.
No human leader should become so structurally important that questioning them feels like questioning God.
The problem doesn’t necessarily begin with the pastor.
Sometimes the builder handed someone weight they were never meant to carry.
We do this with spouses too.
A husband or wife can be one of the strongest relationships a person will ever have.
Marriage creates a union unlike ordinary friendship.
But even a spouse can’t become the foundation upon which everything else rests.
People change.
People fail.
People get sick.
People die.
No human being can safely carry the weight of being another person’s entire identity, purpose, security, and relationship with God.
That’s too much weight for any person.
Sometimes love itself requires us to stop demanding that someone hold up a part of our life they were never designed to support.
And sometimes the problem runs in the other direction.
We allow ourselves to become load-bearing structures in someone else’s life when we shouldn’t be.
We make every decision for them.
We solve every problem.
We absorb every consequence.
We answer every crisis.
We become so necessary that the other person never learns to stand.
It can feel like love.
Sometimes it even begins as love.
But a beam doesn’t help a house by moving underneath every piece of material that refuses to carry its own proper load.
Eventually, something becomes distorted.
This is where boundaries begin to make more sense.
A wall isn’t an act of hatred.
A door isn’t an act of rejection.
A lock doesn’t mean everyone outside is dangerous.
Those things simply establish where access belongs.
You can love someone without giving them unlimited access.
You can forgive someone without immediately restoring every privilege they once had.
You can help someone without giving them authority over you.
You can listen to someone without obeying them.
You can welcome someone into your life without handing them a key to every room.
Jesus loved people freely, but He didn’t relate to everyone in exactly the same way.
There were crowds who heard Him teach.
There were disciples who followed Him.
There were twelve whom He appointed as apostles.
And within those twelve, Peter, James, and John were present for moments the others weren’t.
The difference in access didn’t mean Jesus loved the crowd less.
It meant relationships had different purposes and different levels of proximity.
We often make relationships harder than they need to be because we believe every valuable person must be given the same kind of value.
They don’t.
Some people are meant to encourage you.
Some are meant to challenge you.
Some teach you.
Some learn from you.
Some walk beside you for decades.
Some are present for only a season.
Some should know nearly everything about you.
Some should know very little.
Some can carry enormous weight.
Some should never be asked to.
The question isn’t merely whether someone belongs in the house.
The harder question is: Where do they belong?
And that question turns back toward us.
Look at the people whose opinions carry the most weight in your life.
Why do their opinions carry that weight?
What qualifies them for the position they occupy?
Have they demonstrated wisdom in the area where you seek their counsel?
Do their lives show evidence that the material can actually carry the load you’ve placed upon it?
Then look in the other direction.
Whose life depends too heavily on you?
What are you carrying because it truly belongs to you, and what are you carrying because someone else has never been required to hold it themselves?
There’s no house built entirely from support beams.
There shouldn’t be.
A house needs many different materials serving many different purposes.
A wise builder doesn’t demand that every material become something it was never designed to be.
The builder learns what each material is, understands what it can bear, and places it accordingly.
The same wisdom belongs in our relationships.
So after asking yesterday what the people around you are helping to build in you, ask one more question today:
Who in your life is carrying weight they were never meant to carry?
Leave a comment