Take My yoke upon You. My yoke is easy, My burden light

Have you ever see a little child take a broken toy to his father, and then as the father started to fix it, the child, in his impatience,  snatched the toy back out of his fathers hand,  and made it worse? Have you ever been that child with our Heavenly father? Have I? Well, I refuse to answer on the grounds that I refuse to answer! What is true, is that too often, I want what I want, and I want it ….. (fill in the blank)! But when I get ahead of Him I finish up with this bone weariness, and when I lag behind Him it’s somehow worse. The rugged individualism of our culture does not work, and neither does the apathy, or  isolationism. You know, like Jonah running away from it all, hiding while the world is going to hell in a hand basket! We tended to land on one or the other of these extremes, that ,  or swing violently from one to the other.

Into all of this, I hear Jesus this morning inviting me, inviting us to “Come to Me, all you 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” (Matthew 11:28-30). I don’t know where you are at this morning, either dog tired from striving, or having given up from discouragement, or beaten up by the world, or by your own self. But whatever, if you or I need soul rest this morning, it is freely available. And we obtain it by simply coming to Him, and replacing whatever yoke we are wearing with His yoke.

A yoke is literally and instrument designed to keep a pair of beasts of burden walking together in tandem. It is often a symbol of slavery, and the fact of the matter is, that we are either slaves of sin, or of righteousness (John 8:34; Romans 6:19). So whether we know it or not, we are either wearing Satan’s yoke, or His! We get to choose our Master, and there is a default choice, and it's not Jesus! In particular, notice that  if we are intent on “doing it my way,” even if that way seems right,  it is not Jesus' yoke, and the end thereof is destruction  (Proverbs 14:12).  And the difference with Jesus' yoke, is that it's  easy, and it's burden light.  Taking His yoke upon us is about learning to walk together with Jesus in tandem, neither ahead of Him, nor behind. It’s called radical obedience, it’s called walking in the light as He is in the light (1 John 1:7). We will not exhibit the fruit of the spirit, neither peace, nor  joy,  nor the rest of it (pun intended), if we are walking in darkness.

Father, I am reminded this morning that if we say that we have fellowship with You and walk in darkness, we lie and the truth is not in us (1 John 1:6). So I am asking You Lord to expose any darkness within me, for I do desire and need Your rest,  and fellowship with You. And Lord in any place where I am wearing a yoke that is not of You, please break it off me, in Jesus Name Amen