The wilderness is not a place of rest; and yet rest is the one thing I feel I desperately need. But what is rest? Jesus said “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 and heart and you will find rest for your souls. For, my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30.
YES, YES, and more YES! Where can I sign up? Jesus said if I come to him and yoke myself along side him (just like two oxen attached together plowing a field), he would take the lead and chart our course of soulful rest. I’m not real sure I know what this looks like. I thought it was hard to follow Jesus. I thought taking up a cross was burdensome. I thought stepping with Jesus on the path of testing in the wilderness was soul sapping, not soul resting. What does it mean that Jesus and I yoked together leads to soul rest?
Could it be that everything I desire rest from is born from the weariness of my burdens of life that I want to escape? When what Jesus is saying is, “yoke yourself to me and I’ll not lead you AWAY from the weary path of your life, but show you how your weary path is the VERY road I want to walk on with you. Your burden and weariness actually come from you wanting another path. Soul rest comes when you embrace your wilderness path and allow me to travel it with you.”
God of rest, may I find a deep soul rest as I embrace the path layed out before me. May my footsteps quicken, and my heavy heart lighten, as I discover it is in the very places of my life that seem soul sapping that you want to enter and reveal to me that in Jesus' suffering you have been there all along. AMEN!
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