My Yoke is Easy and My Burden is Light

Way too much of my life has been about wanting to please people, particularly myself. Pursuing the approval or the admiration of others. Family and friends, supervisors and strangers. Wasted years of working overtime to inflate my own sense of self-worth by chasing things like standing, status, or stuff.

A marathon we’ll never win because it’s deceitful. Humans were never created to venerate either ourselves or other people. Jesus reminding the Devil that you must worship the Lord your God and serve only him.  

A race that’s exhausting because it’s dishonest. Humans were never created to spend all their days and years working to accumulate more and more stuff for either themselves or other people. Jesus reminding us that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.

I falsely believed that life was a competition. Some people lose and some people win. Of course, I wanted to be a winner; whatever that meant. Whatever the cost to myself or other people or the rest of God’s good creation.

Survival of the fittest is a brutal reality in nature and a barbaric realism when humans apply it to other humans. An ethic that’s anti-human, anti-love and anti-God. Jesus clear in his pronouncement to the righteous:

I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me. To the extent that you did it for one of the least of these brothers or sisters of Mine, you did it for  Me.    

I believed in a Darwinian distortion of God’s good world. While ignoring the fact that every person on this planet, including me will become death’s prey. A fact I could ignore in my early twenties; an unavoidable reality in my late fifties.

Finally understanding that everything, and I mean everything about my life had become a burden. A burden that was slowly crushing me. A burden that will eventually crush even the mightiest oak or the bravest warrior.

Everyone I’ve ever met is holding onto something or somebodies who weigh them down. Carrying a history of heartache, hopelessness or hubris. Obstructions that sap our full potential as children of God. Obtuse obstacles that stop us from fully loving God, ourselves and one another.

Ominous omens every follower of Jesus wrestles with as we relinquish our old selves to become who God intended. Exorcising evil from our lives and emerging as entities of enlightenment. A commitment of conviction that celebrates God’s grace, mercy and love for all people of faith.

Letting go of warped worldly values and vapid visions that have nothing to do with love and everything to do with losing our lives to something other than love. Learning to store up my treasures in heaven by loving God and all my neighbors in this world. Doing unto others because God requires steadfast love, not selfishness.

I would finally let go and surrender my heart to God. Offering to God my loyal love and my loving loyalty. Rejecting a world that tempts me with all my desires. Desires whose dividends are death.

Born again, my burdens would be lifted. No longer believing that my life should be about serving corrupt empires or corporate kingdoms. No longer believing that my life should be about pleasing other people; people who don’t care if I live or die. No longer believing that my life is all about what I want, as opposed to what God wants for me.          

Believing in God’s gift of mercy and redemption for all of us who have fallen short. Believing completely in Jesus and his message of our Creator’s love for me and all believers. Believing with all my heart in his Spirit of deliverance through grace alone.

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 in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

I did and I do. Amen.

Peace. God loves you.