Hard Labor
Matthew 11:28-30 Amplified Bible (AMP)
28 Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy-laden and overburdened, and I will cause you to rest. [I will ease and relieve and refresh your souls.] 29 Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am gentle (meek) and humble (lowly) in heart, and you will find rest ( relief and ease and refreshment and recreation and blessed quiet) for your souls. 30 For My yoke is wholesome (useful, good—not harsh, hard, sharp, or pressing, but comfortable, gracious, and pleasant), and My burden is light and easy to be borne.
This weekend my husband and I were talking about how hard we have been working to get some things in our lives established; as well we have been blessed to be able to work with and aid others in the vision and gifting’s that God has blessed them with. As we discussed many of the options and possible opportunities, we came to a crossroads where we had to stop and remember that not every venture is good for us and not everything are we called to do. As we began to explore this subject matter further we realized that in everything, we are called to look to God first before we jump in with a” yes,” or we commit ourselves to doing it. This was solidified as I read an individual’s post on Facebook about the election and people’s opinion about God being in our choice of a candidate. This weekend as we sought God, we began to understand that if we go to Him first even in the stuff we think we have figured out that we can work smarter not harder; that His plan and purpose for us will lessen the stress of accomplishment, if we can only see how relevant it is to seek His wisdom and direction all the time and not just when we are in dire straits or when we have already made a mistake we would find that we would not become a beast of burden.
We will often get ourselves into predicaments, because we won’t pray, read God’s word or become connected enough with God in order for us not to vote for the wrong people, commit to the wrong people and jobs, and even connect with the wrong individuals, (Read Proverbs 3:5-6). Sometimes When I look at what we have come to as a society and even as a Christian community, I know something has gone terribly wrong. We have not just taken prayer out of schools, but we cannot mention the name of Jesus in many public forums and we have turned to human reasoning over the reasoning, wisdom and leadership of God in our lives and how we communicate and interact with each other. We have made life harder than it has to be, because we have chosen our ways over God’s, we have chosen to live not according to the Word of God, but according to the thoughts and standards of man, or the propaganda espoused by men. We have allowed ourselves to become worldly and not Kingdom minded. We look to man to set our course verses God to give us direction, and then when we find ourselves in a ditch or suffering in a state of bondage and captivity and then we are wondering how this happened. It is easy, we chose the heavy burden verses the burden that Jesus spoke of in Matthew.
We all are carrying something. We all have chooses to make in life, but if we choose to invoke the wisdom of the flesh, we must understand that we will live with the results and consequences of the flesh. If we choose to lean not to our own understanding but to go before God and acknowledge Him first and seek Him out first, then we will yield His rewards as we follow His direction. We have become so overly concerned about looking too religious, we have adapted the ways of the world that lead us to chase after so many material things and the thoughts and reasoning of man that we have become ladened and saddled with things that are making us, heavy, angry, and offended. We have laid down the Lord and picked up stress. My mentor many, many years ago, used to say,” take the world but give me Jesus,” as I grow in the knowledge of God and seek Him out in earnest I understand fully what she is saying. Taking Jesus means, seeing through the eyes of the Spirit of God and not the eyes of the natural; it is about not allow our focus to be consumed by what we see, but understanding that there is something that are so much bigger at stake than what we can see. It is about not always being understood and accepted by man, but understanding that if we are accepted by God and obedient to His will and ways that is all that really matters because we will eat of the harvest of our obedience and our followship, of the very creator of the universe, and that is more than any person or people can ever do for us!
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