Day 3623 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Matthew 11:29 NIV

“For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Alas, what is His burden, and too then what is this yoke? Well, to be yoked is to be elsewise tied or hastened together, either intrinsically or explicitly, in what is then an agreement in regard to both direction and too the purpose for said pursuit in said decision. It’s a matter measured within what is an accord, an understanding, a shared perspective as purchased upon a perfection proposal in which both of said yoked parties will reach their share of the shared reward at the end of whatever journey or jaunt for which together they’re tied.

Indeed, it is much the same as a team of oxen sewn together by beams of woods and a little rope, ensuring that they work together at this common goal of such things as plowing a field or pulling a load.

And yet this seems to fit rather amazingly with what we talked about yesterday in what was a post in regard to the verse just prior this. For it seems that this faith as found within a yoke exchanged is one in which so too our burden is shifted unto a new perspective. Yes, within this new we see through the veil unto the reality in that the burden of His yoke as is will often now be proven in the ongoing loss of “our way” of life and thus the vain glory that we’ve all so sought within such a lie that has long kept us outside of His friendship.

Indeed, in what’s here a continuation of yesterday’s post, a discussion on Matthew 11:28, verse 29 is one that speaks, I believe, to the overall difficulty we tend to bring upon ourselves in what is a life lived in accord with what we think as thought often only for our assumed benefit as typically craved within such things as comfort or acceptance. For in regard to aiding the point for this verse today, that verse of Matthew 11:28 that we discussed yesterday does, in some translations, refer to this idea as being “heavy-laden”, as in a train laden with cargo trying all it can to race up a seemingly endless hill that only feels ever-steeper due to the load we’re called to hold.

But that’s just the point. It’s proven in that, yes, faith is that hill up which we’re all going to struggle to climb alongside such things as suffering and surrender, and too our every worry and dream and desire and delight then only felt as if a parcel within a payload of prideful paydays seeking inside each a wealth of worldly victory, but too only each weighing us so heavily that the crest of hope sat atop that hill feels only further today than it did even yesterday.

Simply because today’s yet again brought about a renewed share of this burden as borne within what is a yoke finding us still entirely too often entirely too tied to a world in which want and wish still matter more than faith does to most.

And yet, wouldn’t we get there to the top of that hill of hope far easier were we to offload many if not all of those worldly worries and wants as won within dreams and demands for things we could entirely do without?

Because honestly, are we not only holding on to all these ideas and ideals in what is an effort only to prove that we can eat all we’ve so selfishly and vainly bitten off? Aren’t we trying to show the world how strong we are, how smart we are, how impressive they should find us to be in accordance with how impressive we think we’ve always been? That’s why we won’t let things go! We can’t bear to admit we’re wrong to have worked this hard and this long only to show off what is an effort so feeble and foolish as to be considered all our own!

And too, one that’s only dragging us backwards within nearly every step we feebly attempt in what is always a faith so fragile that we are in fact but childs trying still to wrap our minds around what doesn’t need our minds to help.

For the truth is that our works or efforts, our achievements or accomplishments, our undertakings or understanding were never the path unto salvation. In fact, they're often only the path unto insanity or depression as both designed inside this desperation to prove to everyone, ourselves most often indeed included, that we are able to shoulder this task of being as impressive as we’ve come to believe ourselves to be. But that's why He asks us to rest in a trust placed in Him. For as we all should know quite well by now, there is no rest so long as we trust in us!

And so He came with this call for all to offload every worldly road as measured by every step we’ve taken up what is a hill that will never get us anywhere as pride doesn’t accomplish anything in exchange for a yoke of humility and honesty and modesty and morality and all other such meekness. And He asks of us this because only He knows what matters from what more doesn’t. And while His yoke may seem quite brutal at times as it does unfold in such things as stinging rebuke or personal humiliation, it’s only because He also knows that sometimes such pain is the only way to achieve the kind of change that we’ll never undertake so long as we’re comfortable.

But again, this seems to only consider how His yoke and burden may feel, leaving the question still as to what His burden is.

Well, simple. And what is His burden? To seek truth. To act justly. To love mercy. To walk humbly with Him in what is a way we’ve never known before. And sure, this is in fact quite the battle at times as all the above go often against all our lesser desires. But friends, that’s exactly the point. It’s that our desires are lesser whereas His for us are undeniably better. And so while it may be a challenge at times in what is a faith that feels an often uphill fight, the promise is that our hope fulfilled is waiting upon the crest of this chase into the uncertain and often discomforting.

Because such is what even He promised we’d face whilst still here. Yes, for this faith doth indeed, at times, feel a right mountain to climb that, within these days, does grow higher and higher as both the trials we face continue to mount and so too the odds as won against us within a world living against Him. Because still faith is foolishness to those many who are perishing under a yoke of slavery to every form of malice and mischief that a fallen mankind can become so blind to continue believing is in any way as freeing as so many seem to still assume.

And this is indeed what seems an added weight to this work unto which we’re now called in Christ. Because again, to be yoked is to be connected, to be united, unified. It’s to walk in agreement of direction. And whether we realize this or not, the truth of this life is that we are all yoked to something as we are all influenced by something and thus are, in that, burdened by something. Problem though is that we’ve here learned to live as if we either don’t realize it or simply don’t choose to take it nearly as seriously as we should.

Because the bottom line is that we’ve all lived yoked, connected, united to a world living in enmity against God and thus we walking in agreement with that fallen outlook. We’ve all admired the lost ways of a broken world, and that so much in fact that we’ve yoked ourselves to agreement in regard to such things as what so many call entertainment being harmless or violence and unrest being acceptable if not expected and even such things as coarse language being but common vernacular.

And that’s what’s here called to change.

To cast of that yoke which has held us in agreement with a world rife with all that’s wicked and woeful and to replace it with a yoke of faith as walked in agreement with Christ and His Word and His will. For in this we will also exchange our burden. Yes, no longer will we be burdened by the many blasphemes of a world going down in flames with a sinister smile upon many a face all aglow as their hands still hold the lighters of lies that set others alight. Indeed, His burden is one borne not in blaspheme but rather a proper belief.

And while this proper belief may at times be a right difficulty in regard to its continued unpopularity, such is why the reward is as it is. For Heaven, as sat as our hope atop this hill of this life that is a fight, it isn’t a reward given unto mere participation but one rather won by only those few who fight the good fight, and who set their sights to walking not by sight, and who ask Him into their hearts knowing that He will tear them apart in a loving attempt to remove all that’s long removed us from seeking His course, and who continue to work out their salvation as God, in the Spirit, continues to work out our sanctification.

And yes, these learnings are often strange and challenging, seeming then to only add to the weight that’s so often already doing so much to drag us only away from the top of this hill of hope, but how could we ever disagree that being yoked to Christ and thus burdened by the beautiful hope of such a humbled belief isn’t exponentially better than our continuing under the yoke of a slavery to sin with its burden of both blaspheme and vain glory being all which we then hope to win?

No, I am convinced that His yoke is easy and burden much lighter. For His hope lifts a soul in praise and appreciation whereas ours only ever failed in understanding anything of either.

Which is again what’s here called to change. And granted, no, this doesn’t make it any easier to neither understand nor undertake. But perhaps that’s the biggest agreement to which we’re offered here a new connection, a new unification, a new realization as won within realizing that, again, our understandings or undertakings were never what was meant to lead us home. For there is still no other Name. There is still no other Truth. There is still no other Way to what is still the only Life that ends in life.

All others end only in death as won within the wages of those yokes borne in agreement to such things as personal appeasement, social applause, cultural affirmation, and thus the ongoing confiscation of any and all hope as they’re all told that such things as hope are held here within such things as popularity or power or profit. But my friends, again the point is that to be yoked is something done as if teamed together in regard to such things as plowing fields and thus planting harvests.

But what good is a harvest if all we’ll have once reaped is but a heap of worldly hope as held within a world so shallow and fallow that faith is to most still foolish?

No, again, I’ve for one lived underneath such a bleak yoke. I’ve known well, and for quite a many year along the way, that way in which our wins are only our wants and all we want is what the world says we should. And I’ve had a great deal of apparent success in that direction as taken in an agreement to such things as material possession or man’s appreciation being of such importance that they should remain a priority. But I, for the life of me, I can find no lasting evidence of such apparent worth in what is a life now being emptied of what was never hope to begin with.

For again, there is no rest so long as we trust in us.

And so, let us fight to find His better. No matter how alien or awkward the journey or jaunt may prove. No matter how many might nor how viciously they may disapprove. No matter how hard this hope gets to hold nor how much longer we’re asked to try. For while it may hurt sometimes to be rebuked by the Truth so as help us walk humbly toward His hope atop this hill of this life, once we reach the top of this climb we’ll then be able to realize what it was all meant to help us both find and feel, and both for all of forever!

For yes, I do believe that one day when this battle is over and our peace found for good, we’ll then see that it was all worth the many struggles and trials that we endured to reach the top of His plans for us.

So I say we dare to let His way hurt if that’s what He knows it needs to do. That we embrace this misery of watching our every perfect plan and personal preference go up in the smoke they always were anyway. That we shoulder this burden of believing in and for something always better. That we stop trying to erase or avoid the pain of such things as struggle or strain as both are bound to come no matter what to which we’re yoked nor the sheer number of those who do not care to try and understand why we’re doing what so few will.

For after all, pain that comes from love is far better than the complacency that comes in comfort.

Because if all we remain in this life is complacent, then we’re also remaining complicit in our failing and falling short of the glory of God. And no matter what this world may say nor how many will come to agree, that’s not at all as impressive as this world seems to assume.

Simply because there is no hope in reaching the top of some worldly expectation or social experience or cultural excitement or common entertainment. Because all that’s won here is left here. And so if we’re yoked to anything in or of this world, then friends, so too is our reward. For such is the danger in our being yoked to a false hope in a fake belief that believes only that we’re the only ones to decide what’s best for us.

But having done just that for however long each of us have, where’s the harvest? Where’s the payoff? What’s the point? For if all we hope to gain is worldly acclaim or our having made a name, what then will that matter when still there is to be proved no other?

I understand that we may have bought wholesale this deception that’s designed inside of us an indifference in regard to such things as humility and surrender. Our world simply doesn’t care to see the freedom won in such things as instead the majority are yoked to this joke of a life in which the punchline is but a payday or a party or a trophy or a title. I’ve just finally reached the point in which I’ve thankfully realized that none of that can ever matter because none of it can ever last.

Because Heaven doesn’t have banks or beer kegs or hall-of-fames or titles next to our names. No, none of those things will matter once home. But the danger is that if they’re allowed to continue to matter until then, home may be what we leave.

And I personally refuse to risk that any longer. And so I will fight every day to offload the weight of every worldly want and to welcome in its place a wanting only for more of He who took my weight so that I’d not be lost eternally under the death of it all. But that’s just me, and I cannot answer for anyone else in regard to this kind of choice or change. I’ll just pray you’ll take the time to consider it yourself.

But if I might offer one last help, nobody else in this world will be able to offer any answers either when those tough questions are asked of us one day in the court of Heaven. No, the only voice that’s offered to intercede is that of He who asks us here to take His yoke upon us and to embrace the burden of belief and trust that it’s meant to bring.

So be careful as to what or whom with which you walk yoked. Because while it may, for now, be in agreement with another, or many others, every yoke will be removed when every knee bows and every lone tongue confess. What is it that we’ll then have to confess? That Christ is Lord and Savior and we knew it all along, even when we walked this life alone because of it?

Or that we walked in agreement with those many who refused it, and thus are only then admitting it for what is the first time, but that in everlasting defeat?

Because believe you me, while the weight of faith may seem heavy at times as carried within a life in which most think you a fool for doing so, I cannot even begin to imagine the weight of hearing Him say, “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!”

No, I’ll spend the rest of this time yoked in the faith by which I do come to know Him and He me as again His. Because only in this will we be known then not as evildoers but rather the faithful servants of a loving God who then welcomes us home to that hope after we’ve reached, with Him, the very top of this climb that’s only truly ever been out of ourselves.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold