My Daily Pause

When most people think of a yoke, they think of it as a tool of burden. Yokes help animals push plows and carriages. There are hot summer days and boiling sun associated with working around yokes.

Yokes actually make life easier. There are various ways yokes have been rigged for humans so they can carry enormous loads. Without a well-designed yoke, it would be impossible to carry enough provisions in a backpack to hike very many days at a time. Farmers can carry gallons and gallons of water for their livestock on a yoke.

When Jesus said to take his yoke from him and learn, (Matthew 11:29) he knew he was asking a lot of us. Being a Christian is not always an easy lifestyle. Like the yoke of a hiker’s backpack, or like the yoke of a farmer moving large buckets of water, the yoke that Jesus asked us to take helps us deal with so much more.

Jesus’ yoke makes us better at love. Better at kindness. Gentleness.

Jesus’ yoke makes us strong enough to deal with life’s pain. Stronger to defend God’s word. Courageous.

We weren’t promised an easy life – but he gives us the tools to cope with anything.

As I read through Matthew, (and listening again via audio book) I can’t help but wonder how I would have reacted when Jesus walked up to me and told me to follow him. The disciples had successful businesses and they were in good standing in their community – The kind of lives you don’t just walk away from.

To top it off, they were asked to keep making these adjustments in their lives. Jesus sent them out to teach with literally nothing but the clothes on their back. (Matthew 10:5-15)

They were warned there would be persecution. (Matthew 10:16-17)

They had to go and say things that would not be popular among those they taught.

I found this about the disciples in Burton Coffman’s commentaries:

These men were not princes of the blood, but fishermen, a tax collector, and followers of other ordinary occupations. They were industrious, more than ordinarily successful in business, keen of mind, sensitive of soul, honest, perceptive, and courageous. They were ambitious, hard-working men, an excellent lot indeed; but apparently they possessed no skills or talents of an extraordinary nature. They were men most remarkably like the best men of any stable community anywhere on earth, peculiarly fitted to be the chosen representatives of all mankind, and eminently qualified for the possession of that power and dignity to which the Master called and elevated them.

These look like qualities of the kind of people that are easy to follow. When Paul told us there is no law against bearing the fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22-23), when he told the Philippians to act the way they saw him act, (Philippians 4:9) I have no doubt that he meant for us to work toward becoming people like this.

Yes, it’s a lot to ask.

It’s not very easy.

But the payoff is outstanding!

So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven. – Matthew 10:32-33

Daily Bible reading for July 1

Ecclesiastes 2:1-11
Deuteronomy 32:48-33:29
Nahum 2:1-3:4
Matthew 10