Yoked

Spending time with God each day, prioritizing this in the midst of busy and full lives, isn’t a burden. You know? It’s a yoke.

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, 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. (Matt. 11:28-20)

Jesus, the Lion and the Lamb, tells us to come to him. He tells us his burden is light. If you think about it, having a yoke on you … would feel like a burden, let’s be real. Similarly, living the Christian life does have a weightiness to it. It’s this dichotomy of “I do nothing to earn salvation” (Eph. 2:8-9) and “I must walk out my faith as a result of salvation” (James 2:17, 1 John 3:18, Col. 2:6). But if prioritizing time in God’s word feels like a heavy burden, it may because I’m tangled up believing the lie that I need to do this “work” to earn God’s approval.

Christ’s yoke is weighty, but it’s a light weight — because Jesus himself is bearing up the weight with me. A yoke is made for two. And the cool thing is that when I’m yoked to Christ, when I’m walking my day in awareness of his presence and seeking his leading in the big and small things, it’s not all on me. I don’t have to live under the anxiety of not knowing which way to go in those big and small decisions. I just lean in to Christ, follow his lead. It’s easier.

But it also requires submission and obedience. If I’m consistently trying to go in a different direction then Christ, I will exhaust myself being yoked to him. I also won’t move anywhere, so that’s a bummer.

Spending time with God is not a burden of adding another thing to your schedule. But if it feels this way, take heart knowing that most believers are in that camp from time to time. When that’s where you are, don’t wallow in guilt. Just start there! Be honest and tell God how you feel, but ask him to change you — and do this with a genuine heart of repentance. Set yourself up for success by finding a consistent time of the day that will work for you to be in his Word. Ask God to do the work of getting you to consistent time with him, and then as he prompts or convicts you each day, be obedient.

The reality is, the things we know we want to or should do often don’t come at a convenient time. And we can either push it off, saying “I’ll get to that later,” (but maybe later never comes) or we can choose surrender in the moment, trust God to help us accomplish the things that need accomplishing, and choose obedience.

Obedience yields the promised land. It yields fruit. Disobedience yields a desert of wandering around and missing God’s blessing — his blessing of Himself. We get to do life with the triune God. But so often we can walk around totally unaware of that fact! I am there, too. Many days I don’t even think to pray again in the midst of my day, after I shut my Bible in the morning.

Lord, grow me here! Place in me a greater desire to know you. Enable me to comprehend more of your love for me. Give me eyes to see your kingdom work to be done. Help me to seek you first, because I know that when I do that everything else will fall into place. In Jesus’ name, amen.