“Come to Me, all 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 comfortable, and My burden is light.”
— Matthew 11:28-30
I’m the primary caregiver for my beloved but ailing, bedridden wife and I’ve been feeling the weight of it lately.
The dailyness, the monotony, the unrelenting responsibility of caregiving can leave one feeling “trapped with no honorable way out,” as another caregiver friend of mine once said.
So how to get through this? How to rise above it all and be victorious?
In my own strength, impossible. I haven’t got it in me naturally — I’m mostly a runner and hider (like Adam in the Garden of Eden). Yet I’ve made it this far (a decade and counting). There is only one explanation …
I recently read and reread the seemingly contradictory Bible passage above. “Wait a minute,” I thought. A “yoke” is hardly pleasant most of the time.
Scripture speaks of yokes of slavery, yokes of oxen, heavy yokes, hard yokes, restraints and yokes, necks under yokes, yokes of kings, yokes of wood, yokes of iron, yokes of wrongdoings, yokes in jaws — not exactly attractive propositions.
Then along comes Jesus claiming that His yoke is “comfortable.” How so?
Simply stated, Christ’s yoke fits perfectly, it does not chafe due to being ill-fitting. It exactly fits my life, my circumstances, my strengths, my weaknesses. As written in 1 Corinthians 10:12-14: “No temptation has overtaken you except something common to mankind; and God is faithful, so He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.”
His yoke is comfortable because I know that I am co-yoked with the God of the universe. I don’t have to bear life’s loads alone. If I am willing to submit to His yoke, He will set the pace, and provide all the grace necessary to meet the challenges that are sure to come my (OUR) way.
What may have appeared at first as an instrument of bondage, my yoke leads to the only perfect freedom I have ever known.
Pastor and author J.H. Jowett wrote, “The secret of peace and victory in the Christian life is found in putting off the taxing collar of ‘self’ and accepting the Master’s relaxing ‘yoke.’”
His yoke is relaxing because it comes with a built-in operator’s manual (the Bible) to instruct me on how to get in step with the Master and rely on His strength, not on my feeble efforts.
Again, to quote Jowett, “The fatal mistake for the believer is to seek to bear life’s load in a single collar. God never intended a man to carry his burden alone. Christ therefore deals only in yokes! He wants to share the labor …”
No Rose Garden
But this is no walk in the park, listen to the Apostle Paul’s words to the Church in Corinth, in 2 Corinthians 4:7-10, “But we have this treasure in earthen containers, so that the extraordinary greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying around in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.”
Being co-yoked with Jesus, I am prevented from wandering off on my own IF I stay “in harness” no matter how tough things get.
Again, Paul, in 2 Corinthians 4:16-18: “Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer person is decaying, yet our inner person is being renewed day by day. For our momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”
Expect trouble. Stop with the forlorn hope that things are “just great.”
Now don’t misunderstand. I’m not running around with a beaming smile and rainbows streaming out my ears. This thing is tough, but of this I’m sure: I’ve got God’s wind in my sails, and I know I’m heading for the right port.
As is explained in Romans 8:28, “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”
How About You?
Still going it alone?
— D.C. Collier is a Bible teacher, discipleship mentor and writer focused on Christian apologetics. A mechanical engineer and internet entrepreneur, he is the author of My Origin, My Destiny, a book focused on Christianity’s basic “value proposition.” Click here for more information, or contact him at don@peervalue.com. Click here for previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.