Other People’s Problems

It is the teaching of Jesus and therefore the priority of his followers to “love our neighbors as our selves” and even to “love our enemies” (Mark 12:31 & Matt 5:44). This can become a tricky proposition for Christians in a number of ways. One of the tricky things about this is that if we love someone as we love ourselves and they have a problem (financial problems, relationship problems, legal problems, etc) then the right response might seem to be to treat their problem as ours. However if out of faithfulness to Jesus and love for our fellow human being we do take on another person’s problem as if they were our own we have just created an unhealthy relationship dynamic between ourselves and that other person that isn’t good for either of us. It’s called enmeshment.

Enmeshment is when you either take responsibility or ownership for situations that do not belong to you or you allow someone or something else to do that to you. It is an overlap of personal boundaries that fosters dysfunction in both parties.

So as followers of Jesus how then do we love other people and love the world around us without causing more harm than good? How do we faithfully engage the hurt and brokenness we see in others and in the world around us without making other people’s problems our own?

We do this by making other people’s problems our concern. When we make other people’s problems our concern instead of our problem we place ourselves in a position to lovingly help others with their problem instead of taking it on as their own.

For example, if a friend (or even an enemy) is out of work I may offer to review their resume for them, offer to give them a referral, give them a list of people to talk to, etc. I will do all of this because as a follower of Jesus I have chosen to love other people and to make their problems my concern. But I typically will not look for work for them, I won’t write their resume for them, I won’t make choices for them, I won’t go to job interviews for them, and I won’t work harder on finding a solution to their problem than they do – because it’s not my problem.

We love other people by making their problems our concern.