A PBS special revealed a surprising trend at a Fortune 500 company. The average worker was extending his work schedule by one hundred sixty four hours every year. Only one percent of employees opted to work from home, although the company permitted it. Employees were shortening their vacation time by fourteen percent. Most employees weren’t even using all of their vacation days! Out of twenty one thousand employees, only fifty three chose to work part time after having a new baby.
Arlie Hochschild, the researcher behind the study, explains that the average worker doesn’t mind sacrificing time at home. Despite family-friendly policies in the workplace, employees are opting to spend more time, not less time in the office. The workplace is becoming more cozy and comfortable while home with its diapers, dirty dishes, and divorce is becoming increasingly harried and hectic. Plus the demands of family relationships, which often include the experience of divorce and the blending of families, call for emotional skills that many people don’t possess. Employees are going to work not because of dollars or a fear of being laid off, but to relax.
[source Arlie Russell Hochschild, "Ahhhh, Sweet Work," PBS News Hour 7/31/97]
We're looking for rest in all the wrong places.
How ironic! People are actually going to work in order to find rest and relaxation! I think that says something about our times and about the stress we have in our lives. We're looking for rest, but in all the wrong places! We're escaping to our cubicles at work. We're cutting our vacations short, disappointed. We're withdrawing from important family relationships, from our church family, from God, from worship, and from friends. We'll work at anything to squeeze out a little rest and relaxation.
Yet despite our many attempts, we're not finding peace. We're anxious. We're emotionally discouraged. We're worn out by life. We're weighed down with troubles and burdened by difficult circumstances. And more than we’d ever care to admit, we sense our spiritual passion eroding along with our zest for life. We have difficulty understanding how our relationship with God through Jesus Christ is supposed to make any difference in our situation.
This week I was reading about a mother who went to a women’s conference, searching for some sort of answer for her life. She was a Christian, yet her life was filled with unbelievable pain. During the event she sat in the back of a church auditorium packed with over five hundred women, struggling alone for some answer. Her shoulders and head were lowered from pure exhaustion and discouragement. Tears streamed down her face as she told her story.
To a leader at the conference she explained how her oldest son suffered from muscular dystrophy and had been confined to a wheelchair for most of his seventeen years. Her other two children had a variety of learning and emotional challenges. She admitted to being married to a mean and hateful man who made her life miserable. "He won’t help me out with our son. He even refuses to help while I hold our son when he goes to the bathroom. I buried my father this week," she continued. "At the funeral I learned that my father had disinherited me from his estate because he hated my husband." But then she made a brutally honest admission. "I came this weekend with one prayer. I asked God to kill my husband. I prayed, 'Lord, I need a way out! I feel like a bird in a cage.' "
Can Jesus set us free from stress?
Don’t you think that it is fair to ask what difference Jesus Christ is to make in the lives of stressed-out people? People who want to be set free from the stress. In Matthew 11:28-30 (NIV) Jesus addresses this important question. "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." Jesus' answer can be understood by looking at three simple words in this passage. Each word is actually a command.
Jesus invites us to come.
This is a simple enough request, but a request we ignore all too often. Jesus invites us, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened." There is a subtle confidence to his words, a quiet determination. His words give the distinct impression that absolutely nothing intimidates him. That he can shoulder the overwhelming burdens that wear us out. That whatever condition we come to him in, he can and will somehow make a positive difference in us.
Jesus didn’t see himself as some kind of fair-weather savior who should only be worshiped, served, and sought out during good times. Jesus is also there for the hard times. The times when we're feeling impulsive, desperate, or impatient. The times when we're demanding answers, when we're questioning ourselves and God and our purpose in life. The times when we are about to do or say something rash. When we're about to pull our hair out. When evil seems like the only remedy for a situation gone sour. When we are so discouraged and angry and worn out that we want to throw in the towel.
If you ever have any doubt about this, just read the Psalms. The psalmists sought God during the highs and the lows of their lives. During good times and bad times when the love of God was impressed upon their hearts, but also when they wanted the heads of their enemies on a platter.
The point is that Jesus is the only one who is promising rest. Let's face it. Your boss or customers aren’t promising you rest. Your teachers at school aren’t going to give you rest. Your parents aren’t going to give you rest. Your children aren’t going to give you rest. The bill collectors aren’t going to give you rest. Your enemies aren’t going to give you rest. The IRS isn’t going to give you rest, not even after you die!
But Jesus promises that he will give us rest if you come to him. I don’t know where you are at or what situation you find yourself in. But I can speak to what I find myself doing when I am feeling overwhelmed. It's in my nature to trust in myself. I suck it up and try working harder. I put in more hours. I try to solve the issue in my time, with my wisdom, in my way.
But in the Spirit, Jesus invites us to come to him. To trust in him. To pray. To seek. To let go and put our stressful situations at his feet. To resolve our issue in God’s time, according to God’s wisdom, in God’s way. The person Jesus Christ is our starting point for dealing with stress. So we begin by obeying Jesus' command to simply come.
Jesus invites us to take.
Jesus says, "Take my yoke upon you. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." It is easy to overreact to Jesus' words here, "Take my yoke upon you." First of all, what is a yoke? And second, with all our stress why should we want to shoulder any more than we already are?
First, what is a yoke? A yoke is a piece of wood that is put around an ox’s neck and is used to pull a cart or plow, or to tread grain, or to accomplish some other task. A yoke is a symbol of subjection and servitude. It is literally, bondage! It symbolizes a heavy burden or obligation that is to be shouldered. But a yoke is more than a piece of wood. Dr. Paul Brand writes, "A good yoke is carefully formed to the shape of an ox’s neck. It should cover a large area of skin to distribute the stresses widely. It should also be smooth, rounded, and polished with no sharp edges, so that no one point on an ox’s neck will endure unduly high stress. If fashioned correctly, the yoke will fit snugly around the ox’s neck and cause him no discomfort. He can haul heavy loads every day for years and his skin will remain perfectly healthy, with no pressure sores."
Now before you reject or accept Jesus' yoke, you need to realize that in one way or another you are already shouldering a yoke. We are subject to our circumstances, the expectations that we place on ourselves, and the expectations others place on us. The responsibilities, priorities, and obligations we choose for ourselves, the career path we choose, the needs that surround us, the rigors of family of life such as marriage and child-rearing, the troubles we create for ourselves through disobedience to God’s word; the list is endless. The question isn’t whether we are shouldering a yoke, but rather, which yoke are we shouldering? Are we shouldering a yoke we have clumsily fashioned for ourselves, or are we shouldering the yoke that Christ has specially fashioned for us?
Jesus isn’t asking us to shoulder an additional yoke. He is asking us to lay aside the yoke we have fashioned for ourselves, and take the yoke he has fashioned for us. The yoke we fashion for ourselves is rough and unnatural. It is unpolished. It has splinters and creates pressure points. It makes our skin sore and blistered. It wears us out, leaving us feeling exhausted, spent, and discouraged!
Comparatively, Jesus' yoke is easy and his burden is light. Jesus himself isn’t like those who selfishly and insensitively place additional stresses on us. He is described in Matthew 11:29 (NIV) as, "gentle and humble in heart." He will not crush or overwhelm us like others do. In 1 Corinthians 10:13 we are told that he will not give us more than we can bear or stand up under. Jesus is the master carpenter who has designed a custom yoke for us that perfectly distributes the pressures of life so we can stand up under them.
Point number one is that Jesus invites us to come directly to him. But his second point is that we need to take the yoke he has perfectly fashioned for us, and lay down the imperfect yoke that we have carved out for ourselves.
Jesus invites us to learn.
Notice what Jesus says, "Come to me, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart." The perfect yoke that Jesus has designed for us is God’s will. Compared to the life we choose for ourselves, the life God chooses for us is far easier and superior. Satan continually perpetuates the myth that disobedience to God’s will leads to an easier, happier, more complete life. Satan says that the cost of discipleship is too great a price to pay and will never translate into the joy, life, peace, contentment, happiness, fulfillment, rest, and relaxation that Jesus promises.
Well this is nonsense! The Bible invites us to consider the costs of non-discipleship and to consider the unnecessary burdens we shoulder by going our own way, fashioning a yoke that is not in conformity with God’s will. Proverbs 14:12 (NIV) says, "There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death." It is true that God will not give us more than we can bear, but this is true only of Christ’s yoke. The yoke we choose for ourselves doesn’t carry the same guarantee. It isn’t Christ’s yoke that overwhelms us and kills us. The yoke that kills us is our yoke that seems right and feels good, but in the end leads to death.
Let me say a word about Jesus' command to, "take my yoke and learn from me." Jesus wasn’t talking about some cerebral classroom exercise in which we would become convinced of all the good reasons we should do his will. He was telling us to discover, to seek, to inquire, to ascertain for ourselves, to come to know through personal experience, and to discover in life the benefits of choosing and obeying God’s will over going the way that seems right to us. Jesus was inviting us to test his words through submission and obedience. To cast aside our yokes and set his yoke firmly on our necks and live life to the fullest. Jesus was promising, "take my yoke and learn from me, and you WILL find rest." (Emphasis added)
One man said it best. Jesus’ way hasn’t been tried and found lacking. It has been left untried. Allow me to take off my teacher hat and put on my preacher hat for a moment. At times, there is nothing more frustrating to me than trying to explain the wisdom of God’s will. For example, here are five reasons you should forgive so and so. Or here are three reasons you shouldn’t live with and be intimate with your fiancée before your wedding. Or here is why you should be reconciled with your wife and not pursue divorce. Or here is why you should not get drunk or view pornography or take justice into your own hands or gossip. Or here is why you should tithe, or make church a priority for your family, or support missions work, or whatever.
The greatest lessons in obedience are discovered in taking Christ's yoke.
The greatest reasons for doing God’s will are not always found in our reasoned explanations or intellectual arguments. In fact, our explanations often empty our faith of its life-changing power! No, the greatest reasons for obedience are learned through personal experience as we actually live according to God’s will every single day. The greatest reasons are discovered in taking Christ’s yoke and learning from him, through experience, that obeying God’s will leads to life and rest for our souls.
If your life is ball of stress, just do an internal assessment. First, have you brought it to Jesus? Jesus says, "Come to me." Second, have you subjected yourself to God’s will? Jesus says, "Take my yoke." Last, have you been trusting Jesus' way? Jesus says, "Learn from me."
That mother of three confided in a trusted leader at the women’s conference. "I came this weekend with one prayer. I asked God to kill my husband. I prayed, 'Lord, I need a way out! I feel like a bird in a cage.' " But then she lifted her eyes and said, "When I prayed that prayer, God spoke to me as clearly as I’ve ever sensed his voice. He said, 'Even a bird in a cage sings.' " With tears running down her face she asked, "What am I supposed to do with that? How do I live with God’s answers?" Feeling utterly impotent the leader replied, "If God says, 'sing', you need to find your song."
Our song is found by coming to Christ. By taking his yoke and by learning from him an entirely new way to live. A way of living that promises rest for our stressed-out souls.