Matthew 11 At that time Jesus declared, "I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; 26yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. 27 All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. 28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."
This week I've been hearing over and over "Come to me all who labor and find rest for your soul." My mind doesn't have scripture as readily memorized as some do, but today I sought out the word to see what God was trying to tell me. In the meantime, I've been pondering, what is rest, and what is labor?
In reading the whole passage I found more questions (as I'm prone to do). What is being childlike? You would think I would know this one. I've been a child, raised three of them, and work with tons of them. There are everywhere!!! But you know Jesus had a point to this, since he referred to it more than once in his teaching. So as I sat here this morning, I've been reviewing children, what are they like? What endears us to them? Why do we protect them so? You will have different answers than I do, but of course they are cute and cuddly, they are innocent, they climb in our laps for us to hold, they trust us, they are honest in what they say.
Wonder where Jesus was going with this? Do I trust him enough to totally TRUST him, do I go to him for comfort (usually Ben and Jerry's but I'm working on that one), do I want to sit and play with him, spend time with him? I'm bombing out here. You all know I would rather sit and read a novel than do just about anything, and I'm not very trusting. When the kids were little I remember sitting in the floor playing with them, stacking blocks, playing cars, all those little things. How do we translate that to our relationship to Jesus? I don't know. I'm thinking this is part of the walk that I don't understand. I know it's more that just getting a few minutes in prayer, but really how do we translate having that friendship thing? That just being together that we do with our friends. Some of the most meaningful time you will ever have with a friend is when you are just together, you don't have to always fill the air with the sound of talking, it's just being together. Did I just answer my question?
What is labor? Do we labor to walk in this world? I do, I don't understand a lot of what I see in the ER. I don't understand how people can be mean, cruel, or just stupid. You see people who are ruled by selfishness. But we see it everywhere. The boss that puts you in a bad place, takes credit for your work, the co-worker that is difficult, the neighbor that dumps on you, our families.... Then we react to those things, sometimes we get it right and sometimes we don't. It's wearing to us. If everyone around us was kind and gentle, maybe this world wouldn't be so hard. But I know no matter where we go, there are things that just aren't perfect. There is no job, no family, no relationship that doesn't test our ability to walk out our commitment to the Lord.
Then of course, you will find rest for your souls. I want that. In our walk with the Lord there are things and times that we fall. Some fall harder than others. Some get up and continue, some stay in that place. I had ten years that I was very angry at God. In those years I know that I hurt people, my family, and most of all destroyed what faith I had in God. And myself. It's been hard for me to forgive myself since I repented. I keep coming back to the same thing and it's me that is doing it (I'm sure that the enemy of my soul is feeding all he can into my self focus). I saw someone that hurt me in the past recently, and it stirred up all kinds of memories, it was very difficult. I resorted to old habits to help the pain, drank some wine, broke out Eric Clapton, then Nirvana.... didn't really work well. Today as I read this passage, I realized what the Lord has been saying to me: rest from the past, rest from the knowledge of my sin, rest from the pain, rest from memories, rest from hurt, rest from whatever is there that you need rest from. Total rest. It's there for us. He is gentle and lowly in heart, his burden is light. It's ours that is heavy, throw it off. My burden is heavy and when I pick it back up after he has taken it off, then I don't have his rest.
So faithful has the Lord been to show me through the week about his rest. Years ago, before I ever became a Christian that was my desire, to find rest for my mind. Now to walk it out.
No comments:
Post a Comment