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"Jesus said to the crowds: "Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." ~ Matthew 11:28-30
It has been some years now since I first heard an explanation of this Gospel verse from a priest. I struggled with the "take my yoke upon you...for my yoke is easy and my burden is light" portion of the verse for several reasons. The first being that I didn't want to take any one's yoke upon myself, because I was struggling with enough at the time as it already was...I didn't need to add an additional weight of someone's burden to my already over-burdened life, even if it was the Lord who was asking.
How I now shudder to think that I was once so shallow and mean-spirited and selfish. My spiritual director relieved me by asking me if I had ever seen oxen yoked together pulling a heavy weight. Of course, I replied in the affirmative. He went on to explain to me that neither of the oxen could pull such a weight by themselves, but that by pulling together, it made the burden lighter on both of them.
That was something I had never considered, even though I had been married for a number of years and had worked with my spouse to accomplish some things, it never dawned on me that we had been "yoked together" so that we could actually get the job done. Nor had I ever applied it to the Lord, oddly enough.
As I have since learned, when the Lord yokes Himself to me, it is for my benefit and not to make His burden lighter, as I had erroneously thought. He is actually doing me a favor by yoking His Divine Self to my poor and piteous human self and pulling with me through the difficulty. It is an astounding thought...that He would want to...and that I could be so foolish as to not want to be yoked together with the Lord of the Universe. Wow.
Fortunately, with good spiritual direction, I was able to view that Scripture in the proper light and it opened for me a whole new way of viewing Scripture and the Lord's call in my life.That's the "and learn from me" portion of this Gospel verse. Because I was able to correctly understand this one verse, it opened for me a way to understand better (not something that comes all at once, but a journey of learning) scripture as God meant it to be. And now that I am studying Lectio Divina I understand that God's Word is Him actually speaking to me. To me, personally. Again, Wow.
It is still a little intimidating to think that He wants to be yoked to all that burdens me, as I sit and consider all that I have to do and all that is left undone. And that He loves me deeply enough and dearly enough to yoke Himself to me. For me and for my benefit. It's so amazing and I am so in love with you, Lord.
Thank you for all your many blessings and for choosing to yoke yourself to me that I might be able to bear my burdens with ease.
You must learn to accept all that you hear me speaking in the depths of your heart as our Heart to Heart Conversation. Yes, I use my Scripture to begin the conversation, but as we journey along, you must act on the sure knowledge that what you hear in the depths of your heart is actually me speaking to you. It will change your life, as you know from past glimpses of this truth.
My child, I do love you beyond imagining. Fear not. All is well.
Thank you, my Lord!
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