Reigning Me Back In...

[mourntheloss]

So I was on my way home on Saturday night, and (I'm not gonna lie) I was pretty upset, so I stopped at my prayer garden to pray and get a handle on my emotions- after all, I was driving, and I made a promise to someone long ago that if I ever got too upset to drive, I would pull over. So I went to my garden. And I walked through the bushes, past the flowers, to the little stone bench which has been so faithful to me in the past- a familiar friend with which I've spent much time. I sat down, still crying, and I utterly cried out to God, as I tend to do often when I take things into my own hands, and one thought struck me- you know when a certain verse pops up at a certain time and you KNOW it's God, right? And the verse that FILLED my head and thoughts was Matthew 11:29-30- "Come to me, all who are heavy burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light." This is Jesus talking. First of all, a little background here- what the heck is a "Yoke?" In Jesus' day, the most respected people of the time were Rabbi's. This is what every Jewish male aspired to be, but few made it. Now each Rabbi took a certain amount of students- appretices, if you will- and taught them teh scriptures. However, each Rabbi had a different INTERPRETATION of what a lot of the scriptures meant. So each Rabbi's set of interpretations was called that Rabbi's "yoke," and the goal of each student was to learn enough from the Rabbi to CARRY ON his yoke. And each of these yokes would be filled with rule after rule after rule, with different behaviors and traditions that one would have to follow... So when Jesus says, "take MY yoke upon you, for (it) is easy and my burden is light," He's saying "Hey! I don't require alot of rules or traditions. My yoke is easy to handle, easy to pass on, not tiresome (as the other Rabbi's yokes were) and it won't stress you out." (Wow, that was some paraphrasing, huh!?!?!) Meaning that His yoke is based in love, not in tradition or rules or condemnation- and love is a lot easier to bear than those other things. But the part of this verse that really struck me Saturday night was the "Come to me, all who are heavy burdened, and I will give you rest." We really don't have an excuse to be heavy burdened, do we? Because we know where rest is found- IT SAYS SO RIGHT HERE. So when we are weighed down, and we are emotionally exhausted, and we carry on this way for who knows how long- it's really kind of ridiculous. Because we don't HAVE To carry on that way, because it says right here where we can find rest. So right now, a VERY emotionally confusing time of my life where I try to decipher where God wants me and when, it doesn't have to be burdensome to be a test of my faith- because if I'm burdened, Jesus tells me right here where to go. If my focus is where it should be, I shouldn't be miserable,because Jesus promises me REST.

I just woke up, and that was a lot of rambling to try and get my point across... I hope it made sense!