Jesus tells the “weary and burdened” to come to Him to find rest. Matt 11:28 Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 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. 30 For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” Worn down people are all around us! They are in the church, our schools, where we work, our neighborhoods, and perhaps even our homes. Many people are anxious and stressed, and this contributes to their physical and emotional depletion. Eph 5:16 reminds us to “redeem the time”, or make the best use of the moment we are in. I’m suggesting it is radically redemptive for us and those around us when we “… take My yoke upon you …”.
Yokes were not designed for entertainment or play, but for work. Does this strike you as odd that God’s plan for the weary and burdened is to have them put on a yoke? People are feeling exhausted, and He is offering them a job. Let’s think about that — the worker in the picture finds it significantly easier to do the same job with the device over his shoulders. His arms don’t get weary, the weight is balanced over his physical core, he is less likely to waste some of the content, and the buckets don’t bump into his legs. He is working yet the labor is eased by taking up and using the yoke.
The tiredness of ongoing labor is a summons from God to come near to Him, joining our purpose to His, and freshly discovering a rest and refreshing for our weary soul. We know God radically transforms lives. Did you ever consider that He would do that through your heavenly calling? How much transformation took place in the life of Jesus disciples because their response to His call put them in position for transformation (Matt 4:19; 2Cor 3:18)? We can surmise as much from their response to Christ, detailed in the the Gospels and the Book of Acts that it was radical! Our identity and well-being are sourced through our Holy Spirit enabled connection to God. He calls – we answer. He leads – we follow. He gives a plan – we follow the plan, and rest for your soul results! Likely you have heard someone say “work smarter, not harder”. Wouldn’t it be smart to find easier and more efficient ways of doing things? Of course it would! God created all of us with very specific intentions and thoughts about our lives and days. Rom 12:3-8 reminds us that we have different gifts that He intends to blend together for His purposes. This reinforces the truth that the gift God gives each one of us is intended to blend with the gifts He gives others, so that together we become Jesus hands, feet, mouth, eyes, and ears. We are our truest self when we identify with Jesus Christ and God’s eternal purpose for us. This is the easy yoke referred to above. Matt 11: 29“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.” An environment of developing, blending, and receiving each other’s gifts is in harmony with God’s call on each of us, and is the culture we continue to invest in and promote at ACF.