‘Come to 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.’
There have been times in my life where I’ve been so weary and weighed down with burdens, that I haven’t known how to come to Jesus and find His rest. Times where I’ve been consumed and darkened by negative thoughts. The above passage starts with the words ‘come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.’ This ‘I will’ is a promise. Jesus then goes on to tell us how: ‘Take my yoke upon you and learn from me.’
The illustration of a yoke would have been familiar to the listeners of that time. A yoke was a wooden construction used to pair oxen together. The piece of wood stretched from one oxen to the other, and once they had been safely yoked together, they could walk in step. This meant that they could then plough a field or pull a cart along. The whole thing would not work if one of the oxen tried to go faster or slower.
Jesus offers us His yoke so that we can learn to walk in step with Him. Rather than trying to throw off our burdens ourselves, maybe we could place Jesus’ yoke upon us and allow Him to carry them with us. This process of walking and learning from Jesus, begins the journey of trusting Him to help us let go of our burdens.
The beautiful thing about Jesus is He never forces us into the yoke. His invitation is to come to Him, where He stands with open arms; to learn from Him and be changed by Him. I love the fact that His yoke is easy and His burden is light. What a joy to be yoked to Jesus who will bring rest to our souls.
Would you like to invite Jesus to be yoked with you?
Prayer
Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for the invitation to be yoked to Jesus today. I am willing to step into His yoke and to learn from Him. Trusting that Jesus will walk in step with me, never going too fast or too slow, and that through this process I too will know the lightness of my burdens, as Jesus refines me. Amen.