I’m not a huge Oprah fan, though I do appreciate a number of her efforts. Recently, she hosted Rick Warren, who in turn, brought Nick Vujicic.
Wherever you are today, whatever you feel is limiting your life or outrightly stealing it away from you, this is more than a tad inspiring.
Go in strength, my friends. God is your Maker, Provider, and Companion. And with Him, nothing is impossible.
This invitation is among Jesus’ most famous words (Mt 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.”
Tillers International put out a document on how to build a yoke (in case you were looking for a wood shop project). They noted that a typical wooden yoke might weigh 50-60 pounds, certainly more than I’d care to carry in a backpack each day but hardly problematic to a team of animals who might weigh a couple tons collectively.
That got me to thinking about the yoke Jesus offers.
He says that it will not feel burdensome. He also says that wearing it will be a form of learning.
Yoke-talk was common-place among first-century rabbis. It spoke of whose rule one was living out, whose Torah-interpretation one was holding, whose “way” one was walking. Typically, potential students might approach a teacher under whom they desired to learn. Some sort of “application” would take place, with testing and gauging of whether this student was suitable for this master. Jesus splits from the standard operating procedures immediately by putting out a call of invitation, particularly to those whose current yokes are crushing them. To the wearied and the worn, a restful yoke awaits.
I mean, Jesus is the same one who called his followers to “be holy, as God is holy”. He told them that they would need to pursue a higher form of righteousness than the minutia-minded Sinai-sticklers of their day, so we can safely conclude that he was not speaking of slack standards or halfway holiness.
Picture it.
See the metaphor: View the farm, hear the livestock, assess the fields to work.
Imagine it.
Place yourself there: Smell the dirt, breathe the air, feel the weight of a yoke.
If there is a yoke and we are wearing it, then it seems easy enough to assess our spot in the sketch. We are the beast of burden, ready to plow under the watch of a master. Simple enough.
That seems easy too.
I mean, if he’s the owner of the yoke, then he is the farmer, intent on training us to be obedient and useful to himself. Every facet of that metaphor works for standard Christian teaching.
However, I cannot help but wonder if we’re missing a key–a very key–detail.
Years ago, my wife and I spent time in southeast Asia. At a number of spots, we encountered elephants: We rode some, we fed some, we visited reserves and protection programs. We also witnessed elephants being used as work-animals. Be assured, you can get some stuff done with an elephant! Who needs horsepower when you’ve got elephant power and a trunk?!
One of the trainers said that when they’re working with a new elephant, they match him up with their best elephant. The rookie gets yoked alongside the expert. He gets mastered; he gets discipled.
And that is what I think we’re missing when we read Matthew 11.
It makes all kinds of sense to see Jesus as the yoke-owning, beast-breaking farmer.
Perhaps it makes all kinds of more sense to see Jesus as the yoke-sharing, way-walking beast beside us.
He straps us to himself and shows us how to walk. Like stubborn elephants, we pull against and jostle with the yoke and the partner. And like the steady guide, he holds the line, graciously allowing us to learn and adjust. When pride breaks and rebellion subsides, we discover that we can sync our strides to this steady companion.
And in that moment of coordination and partnership, we discover that we don’t even notice the yoke upon us. The load is shared, and truth be told, he is bearing the weight so completely that our portion merits no mention. Beyond that, we begin to realize that a life of satisfying fruitfulness has begun.
Welcome to the life of the disciple!
We all know there’s no value in worrying.If a parent or teacher failed to personally tell us, voices throughout history are eager to chime in:
“Worry is interest paid on trouble before it comes due.” (William Ralph Inge)
“Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow. It empties today of its strength.” (Corrie ten Boom)
“Pray, and let God worry.” (Martin Luther)
“There is nothing that wastes the body like worry, and one who has any faith in God should be ashamed to worry about anything whatsoever.” (Mahatma Gandhi)
Yet for all the persuasive voices speaking all the compelling words, worry takes hold on our souls. What counter-move might we make against its persistent grip?
Charles Swindoll has offered this perspective:
“On the day Jesus was crucified, it would have appeared to anyone seeing through eyes of flesh that the darkness, the devil, and death had defeated the Son of God once and for all. I will admit that those three D’s lie at the root of almost every worry I suffer. I worry about DEATH – in particular, the death of the people I love. I worry about DARKNESS, both literal and figurative. I worry about what the DEVIL is up to. All three worked diligently throughout the ministry of Jesus to bring about this long and anguishing day. But what no one could see was that the Messiah’s death would strike at the very heart of evil.”
To be sure, there will always be an invisible realms–questions without answers, ventures without guarantees. Life, by its nature, is filled with blanks.
But the message of Scripture is that much of that space is filled by a God whose very nature is gracious and compassionate, slow to become angry and abounding in steadfast love. Seen most vividly in Jesus’ death and resurrection, we are dared to rein in our ability to quickly imagine the worst, in exchange for a freedom to steadily believe the best.
The Bible’s opening scene depicts a God of light that dwells in the darkness and a God of order than hovers over the chaos. As Swindoll said above, these lessons were re-affirmed for all time in what we thought were the darkest moments of all.
As God says numerous times in Scripture, “Do not be afraid, for I am with you.”
And He is.
Even more than you would believe!
YOUR TURN: How do you handle fear? In what ways has your faith impacted your tendencies toward worry? YOUR COMMENTS MAKE THIS POST BETTER.
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We crave a stillness, a calm where no ripples disrupt. Something inside us says that this is the goal of life, to arrive at this state: Where nothing further needs doing, where no further climbing remains. Labourers dream of retirement, travelers long for arrival, tomorrow’s promise pulls us through today’s pressure.
In 1658, Miguel de Molinos published a piece entitled, “Spiritual Guide Which Disentangles the Soul”. This Spanish priest eloquently expressed a fundamental task awaiting any who desire God:
“You ought to know that your soul is the center, habitation, and the kingdom of God. That therefore, in order that the sovereign King may rest on the throne of your soul, you should take pains to keep it clean, quiet, void, and peaceable; clean from guilt and defects; quiet from fears; void of sinful affections, desires, and thoughts; and peaceable in temptations and tribulations.”
Yet it is critically necessary in any pursuit after spiritual vitality.
However, Molinos was aware of the struggle involved in this pursuit, of the failure that we will all taste in the caring for our souls. To every seeker of God, he goes on to offer these words of comfort:
“Do not be upset or discouraged if you feel fainthearted, for He will return to quiet you, that He may still stir your heart. This divine Lord will fill you and rest in your soul, forming a rich throne of peace. He does this by means of internal recollection and through His heavenly grace, so that within your own heart, you may look for silence in the tumult, solitude in the crowd, light in the darkness, forgetfulness in trials, strength in weakness, courage in fear, resistance in the midst of temptation, peace in war, and quiet in tribulation.”
It is wondrous to consider that God is eager to remain and to reign within our deepest dimensions, spaces which we so struggle to dedicate to Him. Yet He works to grant us some measure of peace. Why? So that He might stir us.
In our lives, the One who stills one storm is often the same One who summons the succeeding tremors. The One who rescues us from the fire ignites within us a greater blaze than any other. The One who frees us from life-stealing, low-level loves goes on to call us to love Him with a consuming affection.
“For he will return to quiet you, that he may still stir your heart.”
Seek peace for your souls today, friends. Pursue it in every god-honouring way you can think of. But do so with an awareness that God will grant it to you with the attached intention of forcefully stirring your heart.
So go ahead and seek it today. But seek peace with an awareness that the God who grants it will undoubtedly still your soul so that He might stir it mightily!
YOUR TURN: How have you pursued a peaceful soul? Have you a story of how God provided the peace you desired? YOUR COMMENTS MAKE THIS POST BETTER.
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In Daniel 2, a deadly decree was issued. The wise men of Babylon were collectively condemned and sentenced to death for their perceived failure to faithfully serve the king, Nebuchadnezzar.
Their shortcoming?
They were unable to make sense of the king’s troubling dreams. But even that isn’t the whole story. In a mistrust-motivated move, Nebuchadnezzar demanded that these sages do their work “blindfolded”–he would not tell them the content of the dream. They were to provide him with both the material and the meaning.
Daniel learned all this, only once the arrest warrant was already at his door. Requesting time to pray, he and his faithful friends–Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah–sought revelation from the God of heaven.
How would you prayer go if your life depended upon receiving an answer you could not begin to dream up? (The next question might be: What keeps you from always praying with that sense? But that’s another post.)
Daniel and his friends pleaded for nothing less than divine revelation. And it was received!
Their rightful response:
“Blessed be the name of God forever and ever,to whom belong wisdom and might.
He changes times and seasons; he removes kings and sets up kings; he gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding; he reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what is in the darkness, and the light dwells with him.
To you, O God of my fathers, I give thanks and praise, for you have given me wisdom and might, and have now made known to me what we asked of you,for you have made known to us the king’s matter.” (Daniel 2:20-23)
God’s role as Revealer is wondrous! My experiences with revelation–albeit not exactly of visions interpreted–have astounded me in a couple ways:
Both timely and measured, divine revelation is not unlike the message Neo receives from the Oracle, in the Matrix. On one level, it appears inadequate and inconsequential, even unhelpful. On another level, it is exactly–and not a hair more–what he needs to take his next step.
A friend’s words, a Scripture message, song lyrics, movie lines, and more–sometimes it’s actual words expressed, other times the truth is found in the spaces between those words. But the Living God has no need of language either. To me, He has also revealed through insights I could not generate, emotions I could not ignore, dreams I could not forget, and circumstances I could not concoct.
And every experience of revelation leads one into a Daniel-mode of worship, though seldom so vividly verbalized, for who cannot enter a mode of wonder at a One who knows all things and shares them succinctly yet shockingly when we seek Him?
Revelation is one of the wonders of the Christian experience, undeniable and unexplainable, a glorious form of spiritual feeding.
Those moments of seeing are a most beautiful thrill in one’s walk with the Unseen One.
Blessed be the name of God forever and ever,to whom belong wisdom and might.