One of my favorite reminders of REST, as one of the provisions of God for us as Christ-followers, is Matthew 11: 28-30. “Jesus said, come to Me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you. Let Me teach you, because I am humble and gentle, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke fits perfectly, and the burden I give you is light.”
At one time or another we will all have burdens too heavy for us to carry. Sometimes these burdens are daily. This verse tells me that whenever or however they come, they come with a purpose; and they come from HIM. The main purpose is that we would come and let Him carry the load with us—to yoke up with Him in a yoke that fits perfectly-- because then the burden is light. If we choose to go our own way and try to fix or shoulder the burden on our own it will always be too heavy. We were never meant carry it alone.
Another invitation He gives is to ‘let Me teach you’. As we ask Him to teach us what He wants us to learn through the heavy burden, we are certainly placing ourselves in a position to see things from His perspective because He will reveal the truths we need to know. Then we are in a position to learn from Him rather than grumbling under our burden.
Rest and trust go hand in hand. We can’t have one without the other. A couple of weeks ago I was reading in Steams in the Desert, a daily devotional book. I came across this quote: “Quiet tension is not trust. It is simply compressed anxiety.” This in not a picture of trust and rest. Rest is really the fruit of trust.
To me, the key to rest is responding to His invitation to ‘come to Me.’ He IS our place of rest and true rest will be found in no other place. Jesus gave the invitation in John 7: 37, ‘if anyone is thirsty, come to Me." Rest and water are two things we must have to live; and we are to find both freely and abundantly in HIM!
