Just One Thing: Prayer

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.
- Matthew 11:28

The image Jesus chooses to use to describe the life of a disciple - someone who follows his teaching - is a picture of a yoke: a heavy object that is put on animals for the purpose of carrying a burden.

And yet at the same time Jesus says that his yoke is easy and his burden is light. 

It is even more extraordinary that Jesus explicitly calls those who are weary. He calls those who are already burdened and those who are already at the end of their rope. They are the ones specifically called to take on Jesus’ yoke so that in doing so they find rest.

How often do we tell ourselves:  When I get my work life balance right find time to pray, that’s when I can approach God! Almost everyone carries some area of their lives that they insist on trying to sort out all on their own. But according to Jesus, your burden IS your qualification. Realising you are tired and weary, and that you can’t do it on your own, is what gets you in the door.

We’re all implicated in this massive human rebellion, the bent of our heart to prove our sufficiency apart from Jesus Christ whether that is through religious striving or some other metric we use to measure our worth. This striving, whether religious or secular, is a struggle under a crushing yoke. It is to labour under a burden we cannot bear and to ultimately miss out on rest - to miss out on life! 

Jesus never says that this invitation to wear his yoke is without effort. I think the real question is not 'how do I take on a yoke without effort?', but 'how does taking on Jesus’s yoke and carrying his burden actually lighten my load?' Do we live out of the trust, coming to Jesus when we are in the middle of being weary and burdened? Tired and at the end of our ropes? 

Taking on Jesus’s yoke is an invitation to step freely into his constant presence and to take it all in. 

Jesus is not trying to teach you new spiritual techniques.... 

Give you a to-do list the length of your arm.

Give you new onerous burdens.

He's trying to help you recognize him in all the ways he's showing up in the ordinary life that you already have. At its heart, prayer is stepping into conscious relationship with God. It is about intimacy with God and it is about partnership with God.