"Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls." Matthew 11:28-29
"Have you ever carried a bucket of water up a hill? Or have you seen someone carrying twin buckets on a fitted wooded yoke which must have two equally filled buckets? Has anyone ever explained to you that the reason your shoulder is getting twisted and pulled out of place (or your back is hurting with a special kind of strain) might be because the weight you are carrying is a one-sided load and wouldn't bother you so much if it were divided into two equal weights? Two buckets - filled with the same amount of water and carried on a yoke fitted across your shoulders, pulling with an equal pull - make it possible to carry a balance of weight which would otherwise be impossible all on on side. The idea of balanced buckets with a more evenly distributed weight is one to tuck away in your memory for the time it may be urgently needed.
I think the balanced buckets may help us to recognize something of what we should be doing as we read the Word day by day, ask for His strength to act in accordance with it, and then do what He says. He has given us a balance from beginning to end. We are not meant to carry a heavy bucket or burden, full of "choice" or our "significance" or "not being computers" while we tip out all the "water" in the other bucket, which should be full of the balance which the Lord God gave us - the equal teaching that He is sovereign, has chosen us before the foundation of the world, and that nothings hinders His plan.
The Infinite God has given us truth in His Word. He has given us only what we can bear, carry, and handle - and keep our balance. He means for us to carry buckets of truth. We are to carry what he has given us. When we insist on pouring it all into one bucket, we are breaking the balance so thoroughly that we get twisted backs, knobby elbows, hunched-up shoulders on one side! When we insist n changing the balance of what God has given, we ourselves suffer and do not have the comfort we were meant to have."
Balanced buckets - with all the words intact - to be carried with comfort!
(thoughts by Edith Schaeffer, Way of Seeing, 1975)
