Burdened? -Matthew 11:28-30
"Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light."
Very often we find ourselves bogged down and burdened with stress and anxiety, having far too many things to do and way too little time in which to do them. We dwell on things that have happened, things that will happen, and things that might have happened or might still yet happen. And yet, with all of our contemplating and dwelling we do not satisfy the burden we bear-- it looms overhead probably even more so than before. What is the answer? What shall relieve our stress and anxiety? What can we do to become free and rid ourselves of the oppressive loads that we carry within our hearts and minds?
Peter tells us, "cast all your cares on Him, for He cares for you" (1 Peter 5:7). Jesus Himself tells us who are weary and heavy laden to come to Him, and that He will give us rest. It is not the Lord who gives us heavy burdens to carry. It is not God who weighs us down with burdensome loads to bear. Anything that causes us to feel oppressed or stressed or overwhelmed most likely is not from God, for He tells us to take His yoke upon us, and that this yoke is easy and His burden light.
The "burden" (if you could call it that) Jesus gives to us is not one of pain, suffering, sorrow, overwhelming anxiety, or anything of the sort. The burden that He gives to us is only that of seeking Him and His will continually, and then being obedient to it. We don't need to seek to understand everything going on in our lives, or even to know what God is doing in our lives. A friend of mine said that not only is the path that we walk upon narrow, but it is so narrow that there is only room for us to put one foot in front of the other, one foot in front of the other... The Lord's will is simply that we walk along that road which He leads us down, being obedient to His calling every step of the way. When we do so, we are staying within His will, and we will not find ourselves burdened beyond what we can handle.
That which He gives us to carry is easy, not wearisome or difficult. It is a simple task to stand before the Lord and ask, "where shall I go next, Lord?" or, "what shall I do now, Lord?" It takes no mental preparation on our behalf to try and find out what we are supposed to be doing; we need simply to be humble enough to stand before the Lord and ask Him in prayer.
The Lord has taught me, and is still teaching me, that I don't need to waste my time trying to figure things out. When I do that I am only wearing myself out and exhausting myself, and not only that but I haven't come to any sort of conclusion about anything and I only frustrate myself. When I seek to look around me and put "two and two together," that is, taking account of what's going on around me and trying to deduce some sort of explanation for what the Lord may be doing, I am not only trying to figure things out without all the facts, but I'm also leaning on my own understanding to figure out the will of our infinitely wise and all-powerful God and Creator. How could my puny brain figure out any such thing? His ways are far beyond my finding out! What a waste of time to even try!
In casting all our cares upon Jesus, in taking every thought captive to Christ, in laying all of our worries and burdens at the foot of the cross and taking up His yoke instead, we are freed from the bondage and burden that comes from trying to handle things and figure our things by ourselves. And whom the Son sets free-- is free indeed.