Matthew 11:28-29

 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. Matthew 11:28-29

When the Bible was written, those who labored and burdened referred to those who were burned by the law as explained by the scribes and Pharisees. In the place of the yoke of their law, which was complicated and had many interpretations, Jesus was inviting the burdened to take the yoke of obedience to his word, under which they would find rest. 

Still to this day, nearly 2000 years later, these words are so powerful. “Come to me.” Jesus is calling me; he is calling you. Again, I think, who am I that he should want to call me to be near to him? Well, I am (we ALL are) God’s child. He made me. He did not make a mistake when he made me. He made me for a purpose. So why wouldn’t he want to call me to be closer to him? Same question for you. God made YOU. There was no mistake in your creation. So why wouldn’t he call his children to come to him?

Parents want to give rest to their children. They want to take burdens off of their children. They want their children to come rest in their lap. My 65 year old mother still tries to take things up for me, so I may have rest. My 88 year old grandmother still tries to be strong to give rest to her grown children. This is God’s intention also. Jesus is telling us to stop trying to figure out the world and the interpretations the world makes, and to allow him to be in control. If you read literally into the verse, he wants you to remove the over bearing yoke (as if we were an ox) of the world’s cart we are trying to pull, and put on his yoke as it is light. He wants us to let him be the driver of the cart, and we stop trying to pull it on our own. His cart is light, his yoke easy. 

We cannot live self-sufficiently. We cannot attempt to make our way through life alone. We were not created to be that way. Some people have chosen to make their own path and struggle alone, like the prodigal son. They just haven’t realized there is something to run back to. In our daily prayers, these are the people we should also pray for; those who don’t know there is a better way. In our day to day life, our “labors” are burdens we put upon ourselves. Things we don’t ask for help for, for whatever reason. We think we can manage alone, we don’t want to bother others. We are trying to prove something. On top of that, “burdened” is all the things others put on us. Jesus is calling us to let him take those burdens for us, and offers us an easier way.

This is not to say that we are to push off our work and tasks,  it to see that if we lean on God, our burdens will become lighter. When we realize we are not alone, it won’t feel as hard. God has put people in our lives to help us along the way. People we don’t realize are here for that special reason. Let Jesus bear your burden’s with you. Bring them to his feet.