I will give you rest

Matthew 11:28 "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. 29 "Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS.

This morning Jesus said, "I will give you rest." We had a wonderful conversation about what that actually means.

The first thing I see is that he gives rest to those who need it. "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. The two elements of indication that we are in need of rest are being weary and heavy-laden.

Weariness is being in a state of exhustion. The Hebrew word for weary is yagea and means exhaustion from unending labor, gasping for breath or fainting.  The Greek word used in Matthew is kopiao and means the same as the Hebrew word but includes being in pain from hard labor. It is applied both physically, emotionally and spiritually.

When we are in a state of exhaustion we are very vulnerable. It is the time our enemy will seek to harm us.

Deuteronomy 25:17-19 "Remember what Amalek did to you along the way when you came out from Egypt, 18 how he met you along the way and attacked among you all the stragglers at your rear when you were faint and weary; and he did not fear God.

I find that when I am in a state of exhaustion I have the greatest temptation to discouragement. The whole world can seem to be a place of unending demands for more. I tend to be especially prone to not knowing when to stop. 

I have often told others that I learned well to work until I fell over. It was what was required in my late childhood and early teens. We lived in absolute poverty. After my father left mom worked at two jobs. I took care of my little brother and as soon as I could I was working as well. There was no social safety net and if you did not work you did not eat. In many cases if you did not work you did not live. There was not much place for rest. 

As a result I understand a little of what it means to be weary physically from work. But I find that physical weariness to be relatively easy to bear in comparison to emotional or spiritual weariness. At the end of an exhausting day of work I find there can be a sweet sense of accomplishment. The wearisome days clouded by continual discouragement and defeat are the ones that wear on the soul to the place of raw pain. 

No matter what kind of weariness plaugues our life Jesus uses it to draw us to himself. He is the source of refreshing! "Come unto me and I will give you rest," he says. And he never fails.

When I consciously come into his presence by simply remembering he is there, calling out to him instead of sighing, or getting on my knees and seeking him I always find a calming of my soul and a renewal of my strength. He is the source of rest. He himself is the rest.

I find it interesting that he does not take away labor. Instead he takes it up. "Take my yoke up you" Imagine when you are completely unable to bear a single minute more of labor someone telling you to put a yoke on! What sense would that make? But that is exactly how we find rest.

Hebrews 4:9-11 There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. 10 For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his. 11 Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest,

I believe we find in this passage the secret. The one who has found rest has ceased from "his own works."

Jesus says that we are to work alongside of him. A yoke joins two animals to work together. Who benefits when we are in a team with the most powerful being in the universe? Who gains resources when you are working intimately with the one who created everything?

I have my little ones help me fix my cars. I did it with my grandson about two weeks ago. I had him hold the socket wrench when we were taking off a bolt. I told him he had to be very strong to get it off. I said it was so tight that we needed to work together to remove it. So I held the socket wrench with him. I let him put a lot of effort into the work so that he would feel that sense of accomplishment when the bolt came off. But I made sure it came off by adding my strength to what would have been an impossible task for him. The delight on his face when the bolt came off was wonderful. I told him how very strong he was. He beamed with the confidence that he was. One day he will take off bolts by himself. One day he will fix his own cars perhaps even after I am no longer around to cheer him on. But he will have learned to love doing so by holding the wrench together with his papa.

That is as simple as it really is with us and Jesus. We get into the yoke with Him. We do our part and he does his - and we find rest.