“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Matthew 11:28-30
Sometimes we carry something for so long that we stop asking how it became our responsibility.
We get used to the worry, the strained conversations, the feeling that someone will be disappointed if we ease up.
Even when we have a little time to rest, our minds keep going over what we should have done and what might happen if we don’t do more.
After a while, that way of living begins to feel normal.
I find a great deal of tenderness in the way Jesus speaks to people who are heavy laden.
He knows the condition of the people He is inviting to come.
He understands what their labor has cost them, including the weariness they may have trouble explaining.
In the same invitation where He promises rest, He asks us to learn of Him.
There is something about His heart that we need to understand as we consider everything we have been carrying.
Burdens find their way into our lives through many places, and some arrive through people we love.
Within an unhealthy family, one person may become responsible for keeping everyone else settled.
Over time, the expectation grows until any disagreement feels like a failure to love.
A daughter can grow into a woman who still feels she must manage a parent’s moods, while a wife may spend years trying to prevent anger she could never have controlled.
Those expectations can become so familiar that questioning them brings a terrible sense of guilt.
Scripture gives us reason to examine what others place upon us.
Jesus said of the scribes and Pharisees, “For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers” (Matthew 23:4).
He saw what their demands were doing to people, and He spoke about it.
That same problem can take root wherever someone’s personal interpretation is given the authority of a command from God.
A conviction becomes a measure by which everyone else is judged, and the person trying to please the Lord finds herself worrying about whether she has satisfied the people watching her.
Within a works-based religion, there is always another requirement to meet before she can feel secure.
Even ordinary weakness begins to feel like evidence against her.
When the question of imposing the law upon Gentile believers arose, Peter asked, “Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?” (Acts 15:10).
His question deserves our attention.
We should be able to bring a demand to the Scriptures and examine what God has said, even when that demand comes from someone whose approval matters to us.
A person’s certainty about an expectation does not give it authority over another person’s conscience.
There are also burdens we unnecessarily take up ourselves, and looking at those can be uncomfortable.
We may begin with concern for someone, then become involved far beyond what wisdom would have allowed.
Their disagreement occupies our thoughts, their decisions determine our mood, and we start feeling responsible for an outcome that belongs to them.
Somewhere along the way, being needed has become part of what keeps us involved.
It takes honesty to admit that we sometimes enjoy being the person who can fix things.
We like being trusted with the details, having the answer, or feeling that everything would fall apart without our help.
Those desires can exist alongside sincere love.
We may hardly notice them until someone makes a decision without consulting us, or our efforts go unappreciated and we feel more wounded than we expected.
By then, we have given a great deal of ourselves to a responsibility the Lord may never have assigned us.
Paul wrote, “And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you…” (1 Thessalonians 4:11).
There is wisdom in giving our attention to the work and relationships God has entrusted to us.
Scripture also teaches us to bear one another’s burdens, which requires genuine compassion and involvement.
We need His wisdom to help someone faithfully while allowing them to answer for their own choices.
Sometimes that includes accepting the discomfort of leaving a matter alone after we have done what love and truth require.
As we learn to examine these things, we also begin to recognize the burdens that come with following the Lord.
His Word gives us a place to test them.
A strong feeling of responsibility needs to be brought before Scripture, because our fears and our desire for approval can be persuasive.
What He asks of us will agree with what He has revealed.
The burdens He gives us are good for us, though bearing them can reach into parts of our hearts we would rather leave untouched.
Caring for someone through a long illness may expose impatience we had excused.
Obeying Him in a difficult relationship may require us to surrender the satisfaction of having the last word.
As we keep coming to Him for help, He works within those responsibilities, teaching us to love with greater patience and to depend upon Him in ways we had only spoken about before.
That work often takes longer than we expect.
We may obey with tears, need correction, and have to ask forgiveness for the way we handled yesterday.
The Lord knows how much we still have to learn.
His instruction to “learn of me” gives us room to come as people who need teaching, and His meekness makes that invitation precious.
Through this, others may begin to see something of Christ in us.
They see how we treat the person who needs more help than we anticipated, how we respond when plans change, and whether we can acknowledge our own faults.
Our dependence upon Him becomes visible in the ordinary places where a burden is borne.
He can use those places for our good and for His glory, including seasons whose purpose we cannot yet understand.
Jesus said, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me” (Luke 9:23).
Following Him will ask something of us each day.
We will need grace to surrender our own way, wisdom to recognize our responsibilities, and help to carry them with a willing heart.
Perhaps we need to spend some time with Him over what has grown heavy.
We can bring the expectations we have accepted, the situations we have stepped into, and the duties we know are ours, asking Him to search our motives and teach us from His Word.
As He shows us what faithfulness requires, we can trust Him with the things beyond our reach.
The One who calls us to follow Him has already invited us to come weary.
We can come with what we understand and with what still feels tangled, trusting Him to teach us as we walk with Him.
He knows how to care for the soul that is learning to bear His burden.
Biblical Womanhood
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