Wednesday 12 April 2017

Your yoke is easy and your burden is light

As I mentioned earlier, it feels like there's a lot of big stuff going on around me right now.  I've just been doing my Lent reflection and I felt God guiding me into His truth as I prayed.  I'm writing down the chain of thoughts I had - as much to remind myself of them as anything.
  1. I want to give my burdens to Jesus, as he invites me to:
    “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, 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.” 

    I feel burdened right now by a desire to make a number of situations around me 'work out right'.  So I've been consciously trying to give that up, to say to God "it's your problem", and to relinquish my control.  I'm a bit of a control-freak, so I need to do this many times over for each situation!
  2. I acknowledge that God loves me and loves all the people I love and wants what is best for us all.  But I also acknowledge that His version of 'best' is 'what makes us most like Him' rather than 'what makes us most comfortable'.  That's what I've come to see these words of Jesus's follower, Paul, to be saying:
    We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.  For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family.
    So, when I give over to God my burden to try and make things work out comfortably for someone I care about, I have to acknowledge that God may well decide what is 'best' for them includes them being much less comfortable than I would like.  But I can rest in the confidence that they are in the hands of one who cares about them more than I do, and know that His choices are to be trusted.
  3. I acknowledge that my main work - the yoke and burden that God gives me - is to allow him to make me like Him: to allow him to burn away everything else and make me the Heather he made me to be.  My focus is not to be on trying to make things comfortable for those around me, it is to be on trying to follow where He seems to be leading me.  That will definitely involve serving those around me (after all, what God wants most of me is that I love Him with all I have and love those around me as I love myself), but it won't involve me being responsible for things working out comfortably for them.

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