Turn to Jesus to Find Rest
“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.” - Matt 11:29-28
Those are not two verses I often think about, but they are important verses for all of us modern day 21st century people who try to juggle family, career, cleaning the house, continuing education, taking care of loved ones, travel, smart phones, computers, keeping up with social media, crazy weird presidential campaigns and the list goes on and on. Come to me all you who are weary.
Those who are weary. To quote Dictionary.com - "physically or mentally exhausted by hard work, exertion, strain, fatigue, tired." Come to me all you who are burdened. Again to quote Dictionary.com... that which is borne with difficulty, obligation; or to load heavily or load oppressively; trouble.
In a recent re-run of the TV show “Blue Bloods,” Frank Regan told his father, he (Frank) was the kind of tired that you can't sleep off. That’s the kind of tired that Jesus was talking about. That deep deep down weariness that doesn't come from a hard day of good work. But rather comes from carrying a load of concern or stress that is too big for you to carry. My guess is all of us have been that kind of tired at one time in our lives. Some of us may even get to that place of weariness more often than we would like to admit. I hope none of us are always living in that state. Wherever you are on that continuum, the scriptures offer us hope
No matter the cause of that weariness or what is the source of the burden, go to Jesus. It doesn't matter if we caused the problem by our sin or miss judgment. It doesn't matter if we ended up weary from the burden of carrying for a loved one or working more than 40 hours a week to make ends meet, or are going through a grief filled crisis. In every situation Jesus tells us to come to Him.
Too often in life when we become weary or burdened, our instinct is to turn to something in this world to help, but that only adds to the pressure we are under. Sometimes we think if we work a little harder or stand a little stronger we will be able to handle it. But that attitude just piles on more burdens- and instead of becoming stronger we become weaker. Sometimes, in order to avoid the load we begin down a path that will lead us to places we don't want to go. Or sometimes we add to our heavy load by throwing guilt on our shoulders, telling ourselves we should be able to handle the heavy burdens we are already carrying. But Jesus doesn't condemn or blame or ridicule. He simply says if this is where you are in life “come to me and I will give you rest.” Only Jesus can give the kind of rest that heals the spirit.
He then goes on to say take my yoke upon you and learn from me. Jesus is telling us to be fastened to his yoke. If we go to him, he will put us in a position where he can take the load from us. He won’t put any more on us. He says he’s gentle and humble in heart. He’s not yoking up with us to burden us nor cause us to become more weary. He wants to yoke us with Him to give us rest; deep rest from this life that so quickly can overcome us when we become tired and burdened. Will you trust Him, go Him and rest?