Genesis 32:13-32, 33-34; Matthew 11:7-30; Psalms 14:1-7; Proverbs 3:19-20

“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.” (Matthew 11:28-30 NIV)

If you’ve been following along the past two weeks, you know that rest has been a huge highlight for my life right now. Dreams and sleep have been highlights on multiple occasions, so of course I knew immediately what I would plan to write about tonight:

Come to me and rest. Join in with me (yoke) and learn my ways. My way is easy and what I carry is light.

How many of us feel like we are carrying heavy burdens around with us day in and day out? Jobs, family, societal pressures, etc. I know as a mom, the burden of my son’s safety and well being is always top of my mind and heart. Day in and day out we pick up and lay down burdens, and it can seem like the moment we decide to truly turn something over to the Lord, the enemy is right back in our mind, telling us that there is this other thing (maybe even related to what we’ve already let Jesus take on) that we need to worry about.

Worry, frustration, fear, anxiety, helplessness, anger–the list goes on. These are heavy things to hold onto, and I’ve learned that the enemy will do everything in it’s power to make sure that we are still holding on to any semblance of these things. Because the more we let them fester, the larger they become, and the bigger a foothold it has in our life.

Jesus invites us into freedom. “Learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” It’s incredibly taxing on our mental energy to hold onto the things that weigh us down. There is a reason those dealing with mental illness have a hard time getting out of bed or doing what we perceive as simple day to day tasks. The weight of the enemy is both mentally and physically exhausting. But Jesus calls us into freedom; Jesus calls us into the weightlessness of being joined with Him.

Weightlessness starts with trust and letting go of control. Why do we worry and hold onto burdens? Because we do not have control of a situation. We cannot control anyone around us but ourselves, and the more we try to have a handle on the situation or the thing that is most burdening us, the more out of control we become, and the more energy we use. The trust is, we cannot control the situations around us. The truth is, as much as we try to plan or intervene, we cannot change an outcome solely on our own. If we trust and give up control, we know that sometimes we won’t get the outcome we want, which is scary! But true trust and letting go comes when we understand that we are loved by the creator of the universe who is in control; a creator who sent a part of himself, His son, to come to earth, be closer to us than a best friend, and remove the burdens of our soul. What a gift!

But we are human, and God made us with free will, which means we have a choice. When we accept the invitation to rely on Jesus, we accept his invitation to learn gentleness and humility. Humility! We have to have a firm grasp on humility to understand that we are not perfect, that we do not know the right way through a situation, and that there is someone who knows better than us and cares for us! It’s all so simple, yet so hard! When we humble ourselves and realize we cannot make our own burden lighter, we have to trust that the Lord will take care of it and pass the burden to him. And our burden becomes light, our mental load is lessened, and we need only to accept His direction and love.

I’m wondering if the Lord can identify to us tonight an area that we need to turn over to Him–something that has been weighing us down. I believe tonight He is calling us to remember in humility that only He is in control, and trusting Him is the only way to let go and accept that He will see us through. If you are willing to ask the Lord that question, He will give you an answer, and if we pray together in humility for the trust needed to let go, He will give us what we need.

Once we’ve turned things over to Him, I can only imagine the sweet rest we will receive, knowing that the Lord is in control, and we need only trust that He has our deepest needs and desires at heart.