“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… and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30, RSVCE).
When I say my “yes” to God’s offer of redemption purchased for me by Jesus’s suffering and death on his Cross, I “find rest” – rest from the oppression and tyranny of my past sins, and rest from my fruitless search for satisfaction apart from God.
However there’s a greater, deeper and more complete rest that Jesus is calling me to, one that is achieved only by my cooperation with him. To access that, I must agree to be “yoked” to him – joined to him – and “learn from [him]”. I must not only learn about him, but also come to know him intimately by submitting myself to him as his serious pupil. I need to learn to sense his ways and his direction in my daily life.
The “easy, light yoke” is that harness which sits easy on me because I’m not bucking and resisting it. It will not chafe and bruise my neck if I choose to be docile: if I yield my own ways, my own will, my own demands of how I think life ought to be. Should I resist (as I inevitably will at times), the harness will tighten around me, and I will feel it as constricting and uncomfortable until I stop trying to go my own way. To “learn from [him]” is to be trained, to understand what the will of the Master is, and to yield to it. It’s a process; it’s called sanctification: being made more and more as I should and truly want to be – willing, trustful, and obedient.
This “yoke” is “a saving yoke”, for Jesus said that only “the one who does the will of my Father” is recognizable as a genuine follower of Christ, one who will be enabled to joyfully enter into eternal life (see Matthew 7:21). For that reason, I must make every effort to cooperate with his training, even if it is sometimes painful. Dying to my self-will usually is.
My Master cares wonderfully for me, doing all for me. He feeds me, nourishes and strengthens me and he watches over my growth. He withholds nothing good from me. He asks only that I grow to trust him more and more, turning myself over to his loving, gentle, wise rule in my life.
I want to be a good partner with him in this project, this “yoke” he’s fashioned for me. I know he’s always present to me, helping me with that challenge. For while he’s mighty, he’s also merciful, patient and good, and I can rest deeply in that truth.
Lessons From Love School 
We can be yoked to a lot of things in life. Yoked to a job, yoked into a relationship that’s not beneficial, yoked to social media, etc. However, none of those things is going to bring us rest or freedom. Christ said His yoke was easy and His burden light. Even though it requires us to relinquish control and not fight against His leading, there is no one better to be yoked to than Jesus.
~Sheree H.
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