Last night in our gospel meeting, our minister spoke about being in the yoke with Jesus. The scripture he read was Matthew 11:28-30. The salient part is in verse 30. “For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” His theme was that the easiest path is to take the yoke of Jesus. We are often told that taking the more difficult path is often best, but that has not been my experience. When I take the easy path, the path the Jesus lays out for us, life is way better. There is less heartache and more joy. It was a great sermon. The sad part is that, even though I have a good intellectual grasp of that concept and am really quite moved by it, it is often my choice to drop out of the yoke and go my own way. In my experience, that has always caused pain and regret. The results of leaving the yoke of Jesus are manifested to us by many of our friends and family on a regular basis. That makes it the much more sad when I do it myself because I have no excuse. When I leave the yoke, I make life hard, not only for myself, but for my family and friends. Oh, if I could exercise a greater will to take the easy path…
JoAnn Waldo
Ken, I loved what was shared last night too! I felt myself longing for my loved ones to realize how much easier life would be for them in the yoke. Then I realized how much easier life would be for me if I ….while being yoked with Jesus, would just stop trying to pull the other way. It is what Kent said… a form of unbelief when we don’t believe the whole verse. Lord help my unbelief!
My exact thought, too, JoAnn. It is the opposite side of what I tell the kids; if you want to have a bad life, quit serving God.