If you were to draw close to Jesus, how do you think He would change you? There was a time when I would have answered that question very differently. I figured He would rob my fun. I feared He would be controlling. I worried that He would come with guilt and pressure. Instead, what I came to experience was rest. One of the first verses of the Bible that I ever read was Jesus’ invitation to rest in Matthew 11:28-30.
Come to me, all 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. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
At first, I didn’t understand how this promise worked or whether it was true. But it was one of those statements that was so bold that it was either false and put Jesus on the level of a con artist, or it was true and shattered everything I assumed about who Jesus really was. I’d like to share what I’ve come to experience of the truth of Jesus’ invitation.
Jesus heals us of the stress underneath the stress. Jesus addresses people “who labor and are heavy laden.” He’s talking to people who are tired and burdened. You’d think that the solution would be to just do less. Sleep in. Take a day off. But people can still feel stress with their head lying on the pillow. Our burdens are seldom just physical. And so, the solution has to go deeper. Jesus says, “Come to me … and I will give you rest.” He gives us rest by healing what robs our rest. He deals with the stress underneath the stress. He does that as we go to Him. It’s an invitation to relationship. And His presence in our lives makes all the difference.
Jesus replaces our heavy yoke with a light one. Jesus makes a strange invitation to tired, worn-out people. He says, “Take my yoke upon you.” The yoke was a harness used by an ox to carry a load. We’re left wondering, “Why doesn’t Jesus carry His own yoke?” We could only find rest in taking someone else’s yoke if it meant exchanging it for a heavier yoke we were already carrying. And that’s the point of Jesus words. We carry heavy loads that wear us down and tire us out. We carry burdens of guilt, perfectionism and control. We try to please people by our performance and think that we can earn God’s approval the same way. These yokes are what lie at the root of the stress underneath the stress. Through a relationship with Jesus, we learn to lay down these burdens and take up His yoke instead. We gladly give ourselves to His leadership in our lives. As we do, He promises that “[His] yoke is easy, and [His] burden is light.” Psalm 127:2 says, “It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep.” Here it describes, not just someone who works hard, long hours, but spins their wheels in doing so because they are driven by “anxious toil.” By contrast, the promise is that, “he gives to his beloved sleep.”
Jesus gives us rest as we learn from Him. Most people begin with a caricature of Jesus. They have false assumptions and wrong ideas about who He is and what He’s like. That’s why He says, “learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” As we learn from Jesus, we are changed by Him. We experience His gentleness. We feel His humility. And in His teachings, we find freedom from our own demanding, oppressive thoughts that wear us down.
I don’t just believe these promises are true because I read them in a book, and they seemed to make sense. I know that they are true because I’ve experienced them. And they work like an onion with ever-increasing layers of peace and rest as we draw nearer to Jesus and learn more from Him. Go to Jesus for rest today. Examine your heart for some of the burdens you’re carrying and exchange them for Jesus’ yoke.
In awe of Him,
Paul
