Come to me all you who are wearied and burdened, and I will give you
rest. Matthew 11:28
Rest, sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? No one likes being wearied and
burdened, but we are. Burdened with worry; burdened with guilt; burdened with
illness; burdened with responsibility. We all know about being burdened – and
burdens are like packages, big packages, that are often more than we can
handle.
Packages that trying to carry makes us weary.... weary, tired, lacking energy
and umph. We all know what that is like, being too tired to make a meal, to go
to a meeting or out to visit someone. It seems to me at the longer I live the
more there is to do; you’d think that it should be possible to cross things off
a list and not have something else move in to take it’s place.
There are so many of us who LIKE our feelings of weariness and being
burdened; well don’t we? They can be an excuse to hibernate, or to stop working
with a group, or quit a committee. “No, I don’t think that I will go out today;
they can get along without me.”
You know, it is so easy to concentrate on the description of the first YOU
in this passage, and forget the “I” and “Me”. But in this passage, which
addressed to all of us, Christ is speaking to each one of us directly: “Come to
ME and I will give ...”
Action is needed on our part; we can be weary, we can be burdened; but that
is not to stop us from making the first move . COME to me. And if we do, what do
we get? We get the Gift of Rest. Do we ... do you ... do I ... have enough
trust that I will go to the One who spoke these words and accept His gift? Or do
I go to Christ, take His gift, and keep right on being weary and burdened,
because I don’t want to leave it all up to Him? I pray that you do better than I
when it comes to accepting God’s Gift of Rest.
This is when I feel the need to pray .... I come Lord with my weariness and burdens. Help me to
leave them with you and to accept the gift you offer... Rest. Help me to relax
and enjoy my life and not be running off in my mind to the next item on my agenda.
Thank you for time spent with friends. Thank you for that Gift of Rest. Amen
