Bone Tired

 

[Jesus said] “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, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-29 ESV).

 

It’s Friday! So many people today seem to be so beaten down by the everyday struggles of life that they look forward to this day as if it signaled a rest from the struggle of the other days. They seem to be so very tired and weary. It is so bad that it has brought on a new illness called chronic fatigue syndrome. I know a few people who have this, and it’s a real and crippling condition. There are literally hundreds of thousands of people that suffer from this disease of our time. We have felt overwhelmed with the complexity of life. We are tired and weary physically, mentally, and emotionally. We all have things that are bothersome to us. They may not be big things, but just the same they weigh us down and make us weary. Everyone faces these things everyday in the chaos we have come to accept as normative in our culture.

 

We all have some kind of burden that we carry around from day to day. Many may have financial obligations that are weighing them down, while others may have family sickness that is weighing them down. Still there are others that are contending with dysfunctional relationships. The list of burdens is long and often complicated. When we add life’s enormous burdens to its everyday bothers, things can get very stressful. After a short time in trying to cope with the two together we grow very weary… bone tired. Weariness is simply a problem that we all face in this life.

 

Our reading today gives us the answer. Jesus simply says that if we will come to Him we will find rest from our burdens. This is not an empty cliché. It’s one of the greatest promises of Scripture. You might think, Oh yeah, for sure. You don’t know how difficult life is for me at present. What can Jesus do for me? If someone else made such a promise we would laugh at them because we know that they do not possess the power to fulfill it. However, we can count on Jesus to make good such a promise. We must remember that he is God, and that he holds all power in heaven and earth in the palm of his hand. When he makes such a promise it is not a shallow, empty promise because he possesses the power to fulfill it. He can ease your burden and the weariness of spirit. Come to Him… He is working it to your good!