Heavy Lifting Without the Weight
Matthew 11:28 reads, (CEB) “Come to me, all you who are struggling hard and carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest. Put on my yoke, and learn from me. I’m gentle and humble. And you will find rest for yourselves. My yoke is easy to bear, and my burden is light.”
On the surface this sounds like a great offer of exchange. Yet at depth, it’s not so easily categorized depending on how you view the world. How well you actually understand what is being asked of you. How do you view and respond to a simple call to surrender?
It’s difficult to answer and rightly so because it’s a serious decision and there are many things to consider. The most pressing is, what are your attachments to your choices? What are your worries for the world? Not concerning global warming or population to resources, but how will your rest affect those around you? How does letting go hurt or benefit others?
Those questions to consider and many do, causing some to resist a most favorable rate of exchange because; “they’ve seen the world and you fear the work it would take to set things right.” Ultimately, it’s that simple. Less a question of sin and regret, but what will it cost? What will the toll be if I fully say, commit to, this is where I am? This is where I want to be. This is what I understand (is promised). Yet this is the state I am and as best as I know it – people won’t accept that light; even His light could possibly shine through this darkness. It’s a heavy weight to consider the aftermath of saying yes?
The answer though is light and not so troublesome at all. The choice is simply, you join – connect with a body; a purpose so overwhelmingly strong the head said, “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” A body who laid down and was resurrected for all time with all power for one purpose – that you might have life. The life that was first given – the life that is yours (by birth). Rest without the threat or possibility of the weight of sin ever entangling you again. Without snares and thorns ever showing their prickly touch… Taking the yoke and learning is simple if you can just remember the weight is not yours to bear alone.
It’s one yoke – one body with all its members answering the same call.
Hebrews 12:1 (NIV) Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us,
