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.

Matthew 11:28-30 (NIV)

 

Jesus makes it easy for us to follow Him by placing his Spirit within us. His Spirit is also the Spirit of rest. He relieves us from the burden of our sin and restores us into oneness with Himself. Everything we do becomes easy and light because we are intimately bound to Christ, who continues to strengthen us for His service.

Again, God’s economy works differently than ours. In this world, we work to rest, but in His Kingdom, we rest to work. Jesus promises to give us rest if we come to Him and learn from Him. The Greek work for “learn” is manthanó, which is the root word for mathetes or disciple. Thus, the more we follow Jesus, the more restful our lives become.

Rest is the most crucial lesson we must learn from Jesus.

Rest does not mean doing nothing. Rest is when our purpose, passion, and energy flows from the One who gives us life and life to the fullest. This is why Jesus told His disciples to put aside the things that tire them and to rest in Him. Thus, let us not forfeit this invitation. Many suffers burnout, not because they are doing too much, but because they have too little of Jesus in what they are doing. Then they are just busy, but not fruitful.

Busyness is a form of laziness.

It is because we are escaping our true calling by prioritising other things above the one thing that really matters. We will never have rest unless we make God our first love always and continually.