Over the past month these words have been illuminated to me several different times and in different ways. Through a sermon, a song, spoken by a friend, and even on a sign at the doctor’s office. This verse is well known and familiar to me, but I’ve learned over the years that when Father repeats something, it’s worth turning my attention to. So every time I’ve seen or heard these words over the past month I’d lean in a little closer, expectant to receive the new revelation that Father had for me in them.
A couple of days ago Holy Spirit brought the last verse to my mind “my yoke is easy, and my burden is light”, and He gave me a vision. I saw Jesus barefoot, dressed in clothes that reminded me of Huckleberry Finn, and leaning with one elbow resting on the yoke of a plow. His face looks so peaceful, and at the same time excited. He has a little smirk across His lips as if He’s been expecting me. He’s in the middle of a hard, rocky field and I can see where the plow has lines behind it, showing me that part of the field has already been tilled and softened. My soul felt such a stirring that I should go to Him, and get underneath the other side of the yoke. That’s when I heard Him say “Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.”
Plowing up a field using my own strength, sweat, and tears doesn’t sound like rest at all. It sounds like the complete opposite of what I think rest should look like. But what He showed me was that when I am weary, run down, overwhelmed, and just so tired of it all; the titles, the lists that never end, the job with the work that never stops, the errands, the holding it all together because if I don’t something’s going to break; that’s the best time to plow the field with Him.
It’s not a literal field we’re plowing, but actually the hardened places in my heart that I’ve been trying to till myself. Its not “all the things” that have caused this heaviness for me, but actually these very parts of my heart where I’ve allowed “all the things” to settle and take root that make me weary and heavy laden. And Jesus has been waiting there for ME.
All this time I thought I was the one waiting on Him. For Him to come, to bring me the rest and fresh wind, to bring me the heart healing. But He’s opened my eyes to see that when I’m feeling burdened and heavy laden, it’s not because He doesn’t come to me, it’s because I don’t come to Him. Instead, I place myself under something or someone else’s yoke. When I come along side Him, nestled up next to Him, He bears the weight of it all. My invitation is to simply come to Him and rest under His yoke. It’s there, walking step in step with Him, that the heaviness is lifted and I can fully live in the rest that is promised to me.
So friend, I ask you, what or whose yoke are you under?
-Jessi B