Rest

No matter how old you get, no matter how youthful you are, no matter what stage of life you’re in, I can almost guarantee it…

You long for rest.

Perhaps it’s rest from your health struggles or from the emotional and physical burden of caring for a loved one who is sick. Perhaps it’s rest from your worries and anxieties. Perhaps it’s rest from workload, life stresses, or healing from past hurts. Perhaps it’s rest from conflict and fighting with someone. Perhaps it’s rest from the grief you endure or from the hurt of a broken relationship. Perhaps it’s rest from the caring of small (and constantly but rightly needy) children. Perhaps it’s rest from your guilt, your sorrow for past sin, your realization that you are not the person you ought to be.

Perhaps it’s many of these.

We all want rest.

And in some ways, we won’t get true rest until heaven. After all, isn’t that part of what makes heaven glorious?

For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.

~ Hebrews 4:8-11

But what about now?

What about that point when you are broken, when you feel that you can’t possibly go on? That you aren’t big enough, you aren’t strong enough – when you realize that you cannot do this by yourself.

When your heart yearns for quiet and peace and restoration?

Jesus answers your pleading heart:

Jesus gives us rest for our souls.

He may not grant a full night’s rest (at least not yet). He may not take away the challenges or troubles.

But if you come to him, you will find rest for your souls. If you pick up and take that yoke, you will find rest. If you learn from Jesus Himself, you will find rest.

The idea of a yoke, after all, is that you are paired with someone who shares the burden with you. Who pulls much of the weight. Who walks beside you until the task is done.

And we have the privilege of sharing a yoke with Jesus. How beautiful it is to walk beside him and to find rest for our souls!