turnipg10

                Jesus wants us to come to Him and receive from Him. But if we are to find the fullness of the rest that He promises, then we must lay down our own yokes (or walls), and take up His. Taking up His yoke will mean that when an area that we are protecting with a wall gets "hit", we do what He says instead of what we have done previously with our own wall.

                So then, if grief has caused us to become less diligent or to not believe, then we must lay down those walls and begin to do what God has said. We must take up the yoke of Jesus. When we go through a rough time and we feel like giving up, or we feel like finding comfort elsewhere, or we feel like lashing out and blaming others (or even God); it is then that we must lay those feelings and thoughts aside and diligently seek the Lord, even though our thoughts and feelings are screaming out at the top of their proverbial lungs against it. We must DO what God has said, despite how we think or feel.

                When we do this, when we take up the yoke of Jesus; He promises that we will find "rest for your souls". His desire is to heal us and to bring us into close, intimate relationship with Himself.

                In order to accomplish this, the Lord will bring people and circumstances our way that will begin to expose these walls and these wounds. These situations will apply pressure to you until what is on the inside comes out. If anything comes out of you other than the spirit and love of God, then there is something within you that needs to change. Yes, the other person may be wrong, the situation may be hard, the feelings and emotions may be strong; but ultimately, if anything but God comes out of you, then that's an area that God needs to work on.

                In I Peter 2:23, he writes about Jesus: "When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly."

                Jesus was our example. When he was under pressure, even to the point of death, nothing came out of Him but the love of God. You and I can get to this point also, if we will diligently seek the Lord and walk with Him.

                He told us that "in this world you shall have tribulation" John 16:33. (not, "in yourselves you shall have tribulation".) He also promised us that "in me you shall have peace".

                When God does bring us through situations or trials, He is doing this to refine us and to draw us closer to Him. In so doing, He will not only heal us, but He "will Himself restore you and make you strong, firm, and steadfast" I Peter 5:10 and also it "produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it" Hebrews 12:11.

                When He begins to bring these particular people or circumstances our way, we have the choice of seeing what He is doing, or of seeing what the people and circumstances are doing.

                Using Jacob's example: When everything began to happen to him and it looked like there was no way out other than for him to let go of Benjamin, he cried out, "Everything is against me!" (42:36) Little did Jacob realize that he was just around the corner from healing; and also from the glory of finding his long lost son.