THE DEEPEST ASPECTS OF A PERSON’S CHARACTER ARE OFTEN REVEALED UNDER STRESS.
“Come unto me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30).
There is a legend that Jesus, in the carpenter shop in Galilee, made the best yokes in all of Galilee. The yoke was tailor-made to fit each ox. Above the door may have been a sign which read, “My yokes fit well.” And now, according to this legend, Jesus could have been illustrating from the carpenter’s shop at Nazareth to say, “My yoke fits well.” In this passage Jesus is saying, “Yoke yourself with me, for my task for you is shared and made easy and the burden is light.” Handel incorporated this in the immortalized Messiah in a great chorus of praise, “His yoke is easy—His burden is light” This is the joyous word of salvation in contrast to a legalism and obscured that mercy of God.
Jesus’ rest is a yoke of wisdom that unites persons with Himself. He offers rest, for He is not only the bearer of the wisdom of God, He is that Wisdom. Such a rest, as interpreted in Hebrews 4:1-11, is the singleness of relationship with Christ, the rest of knowing His provision as a completed Salvation. Discipleship is thereby kept from being a legalistic striving and is instead a joyous fellowship.
A yoke is a heavy wooded harness that fits over the shoulders of an ox or oxen. It is attached to a piece of equipment the oxen are to pull. A person may be carrying heavy burdens of sin and excessive demands of religious leaders. Maybe it’s oppression and persecution, or weariness in the search for God. Jesus frees people from all these burdens. The rest that Jesus promises is love, healing, and peace with God, not the end of all labor. A relationship with God changes meaningless wearisome toil into spiritual productivity and purpose.
We are not people at rest. We are people on the go. Most of us feel overloaded. There is more to do than there is time in which to do these things. We are constantly “on the go.” When we do dare to sit still we feel guilty that we are wasting time.
Do you know that frozen orange juice is no longer very popular? Do you know why? It’s because people don’t want to wait for the can to thaw. The best selling shampoo rose to the top because it combined shampooing and conditioning all into one step so we didn’t waste time doing all needless rinsing. We use drive through windows so we can eat as we travel. We have cell phones so we can do business as we drive. We want faster internet access so we can travel more places on the information super highway. When is the last time you quietly sat down with your Bible and spent an hour with your heavenly Father? He is waiting for you to do so. His heart yearns for it to happen.
Jesus tells us that He wants to give us rest. He is willing to lighten our load. We don’t have to live this way! The problem is that we feel like we are on a treadmill and we don’t know how to get off of it. We don’t know what else to do! We all need to find the balance between laziness and craziness. The problem most of us have is overload—but whose problem is that really?
It is almost a sense of pride when we can say, “I am just too busy.” We seem to feel more significant when we report that we have “too much to do.” Overload people are prone to drift from basic values. If this can most quickly be accomplished by cutting ethical corners, the temptation to do so can be overpowering.
Overloaded people often don’t make good decisions. Jesus said, “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money” (Matthew 6:24). Jesus knew what He was talking about. Sometimes overloaded people struggle with relationships. When we are always hurried we don’t have any time to sit and talk to each other. There is always something that needs to “get done.” We run all day, drop into bed at night and realize the “tank is empty.” Being overloaded can also make us feel we are in a contest—we tend to compete.
Instead of “weeping with those who weep” we tend to be impatient with those who weep and resentful to those who rejoice. We view every issue as a measure of our significance. When we view life as a contest or a race we view everyone else as the competition. It is no wonder that so many people are angry. And Jesus says, “Come unto me … and rest …” Jesus understood the need to have some margin space in our life. He frequently stopped to rest. If He needed that margin time—what makes us think we don’t?
Margin is the space between our load and our limit. The goal is to build some margin into our lives so we will have time and energy for the things that really matter. Margin is not laziness; it’s wisdom. It is planning for the unexpected and guarding what truly matters. When we give ourselves more margin—we hear from God. In Psalm 46:10 we are told, “Be still and know that I am God.” We must be careful with God’s word that we never make it a “trite” saying. It takes time to build a solid relationship with God. We must spend time in prayer, Bible Study, worship, and service. All of this takes time. We acknowledge God but we KEEP MOVING. There is no such thing as drive-thru spirituality. There is no such thing as “Christianity Lite.”
Contentment seems to be a dirty word today. Someone says they are content and we hear them saying they are “lazy,” “lacking ambition,” or simple-minded. Contentment means we focus on and enjoy the blessings we DO have rather than the blessings we wish we had.
We must stay focused on the goal. Jesus promises to give us rest and peace and handle the entire overload that goes on in our life. Reread the verses Matthew 11:28-30—Jesus is there for us regardless—CALL TO ME… I will give you rest. True peace and rest come from only one source: the heart of God. Jesus wants us to enjoy the journey. In order to do that, we must learn to look at life differently. We must learn to find our joy and delight in Him rather than in the stuff of the world. We must slow down before we miss out on life!
