Today will have weighty burdens. To do lists, undesirable tasks, deadlines, traffic, relational hurdles, unmet needs and desires for self and for others… to say the day has a lot of drag working against you as you move forward in your relationship with Christ is an understatement! It’ll feel like carrying an anvil, or running through a swimming pool with an open parachute behind you. I’m exhausted just thinking about it!

So, it is a salve to my soul to think of Jesus’ words today in Matthew – “Come to Me all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

My goal today is not to carry the burdens, not to check off the list, or overcome the tasks, or fix the relationships, or be all that I need to be and have all of my needs met and all my desires for others fulfilled … My goal is simple: come to Jesus.

It also doesn’t say that Jesus will work the list and fix the relationships and meet all of the needs in the way that I desire or anything else, but that He will give me rest.

This day, my prayer for me and for you is that we will receive His rest instead of striving after Him for something besides Him we imagine will produce rest.

…And in all of the burdens of my day as I find Christ in me, His rest is my rest and His peace is my peace and His sufficiency and sovereignty and joy and love and Grace are all mine, too. Where we come to Him and receive rest we find everything He is and all He has accessible by grace.

The burdens may not leave me, but the weight of the burdens are His alone to bear!

Imagine all of the tasks, and all of the relational conflict, and all of the desires for self and others, and all of the turmoil and deadlines and striving… Though they don’t immediately disappear, the burden of them is lifted. Jesus gives us rest! Isn’t that good news?

Today, however God wants to meet your needs, however He wants to reveal Himself to you in the midst of your tasks and processes and activities is okay, because the burden – the weight – of the day is His alone to bear.

Walk easily with Him and His yoke today, my friends. Make Jesus Christ your goal, and you will find rest for your soul.

ridiculously graced…
-mike