Title: Come, All Who Are Weary
Scripture: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” – Matthew 11:28 -30
Weariness, We all experience it, though in different ways and for different reasons. Sometimes we can point to a significant factor, but often we can’t. Our weariness results from the cumulative, multi layered intersections of life’s complexities, bodily frailties, emotional heartbreaks, and the consequences of sin. It surpasses understanding.
Because our burdens are not simple, they are not relieved by simplistic platitudes (“Cheer up! All will be well!”). But hope can relieve a complex burden, provided we believe that the God that owns tomorrow is strong enough to relieve our heaviness (Hebrews 13:5).
Hope plays a key role in our outlook of the future. What most of the marketing companies in the world tries to offer us is hope. A young looking skin, reversing the effect of ageing etc, false hopes only provides temporary distraction for a briefly moment, masking the effects of our burdened souls.
Jesus doesn’t offer us a four-fold path to enlightenment, like the Buddha did. Or five pillars of peace through submission as Islam does. Jesus simply offers himself as the universal solution to all that burdens us. He simply said “Come to me.” we know that when Jesus said, “come to me,” he meant, “believe in who I claim to be and therefore what I am able to do for you.”
Jesus’s great invitation for us to come to him, exchange yokes, and find rest is not intended for us to do in isolation. He intends for us to come to him in community, to come together. That’s one massive reason the church exists.
We all bear burdens and become weary, but in different ways, for different reasons, and often at different times. When we are weary, we are easily discouraged and can be given to cynical unbelief. In those moments we are often not the best preachers for our souls. We need others to speak truth to us and help us believe in Jesus.
That’s why we are not to neglect “to meet together, as is the habit of some, but [to keep on] encouraging one another” (Hebrews 10:25). We are to “exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin” (Hebrews 3:13).
So if you are weary, for whatever reason, however complex, Jesus invites you to come. Come, take his light yoke of believing in him. And if it’s hard, don’t come alone. Come to Jesus with and through a believing friend. Believe, abide, and follow Jesus’s example. And you will find rest for your soul.
Prayer Points
- Father today in the name of Jesus I exchange every load and burden upon me for yours.
Let the burden be lifted - Father send burden bearers my way today in the name of Jesus
- Father I cast all my cares upon you in the name of Jesus
