“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." Matt 11:28
Often when we feel beaten down, the common response is either to work harder to FIX it or to QUIT and wait for something to change. Neither one are very effective. You can just look around and watch the results of both of this attempts. Marriages that are struggling quit in divorce or try to FIX their spouse by arguing and complaining. Parents push their kids into dozens of activities to fix their kids behavior or quit and leave it up to schools and society to raise their children for them. Adults want more possessions or pleasures and spend more hours working to gain money, or just give up and pay with credit expecting a bailout to save them. Politicians wait for the markets to change or go spend more money to fix what debt and entitlement have created. FIX or QUIT is the common answer to every struggle---an that's not a criticism or blame, it's true for all of us.
So when Jesus addresses that feeling of weariness and burdened lives, He offered a third alternative... Get off the couch or leave the desk and come to me. Instead of FIX or QUIT, COME! To come to Him means humbling ourselves to the truth--that we have messed up and need help. It means recognizing we don't know what to do and submitting to His plan of action instead of our own. And coming means WE have to go to HIM (not Him coming to us).
Burden makes us tired, and often the last thing we want to do is face a God who will change us. Change sounds like more burden. But Jesus says when we get up and go to Him, His change will actually give us rest---less burden! The answer is not to fix it ourselves but let God CHANGE us from our burden. It's not to QUIT but to COME!
Want less struggle and burden, then stop making excuses or justifying behaviors and come to Jesus. Go to church, make the changes that Jesus calls for in His Word, and watch the burdens be lifted. He will do it, He promised!!!
What if marriages started using COME and CHANGE... Or parents... Or even a country? Our burdens would just be bumps in the road of life.
The answer for our struggles is to get up & walk to God, not sit around and wait for change. So get up this week and find you way back to Him, to His body, to His rest.
COME and CHANGE.
No comments:
Post a Comment