Fall on Jesus

Matthew 11:28-30

“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 light.”

Commentary:

Addictive behaviors are burdensome and heavy labor because these addictive behaviors eventually lead to being burdened by hunger (we could easily substitute lust for hunger) for things that never satisfy us, angry over things that are really petty, lonely when we are surrounded by people that care about us, and tired from all the energy spent on being lustful, angry, and feeling lonely. Jesus offers us a solution to these heavy burdens by learning from his meekness and humbleness. So often people think that being meek means that you are weak. Meekness means you are submissive which means you are willing to yield to the authority of Jesus. This requires great trust in God’s plan for my life, and accepting his yoke to guide me to where he wants me go. I like the use of the word yoke because of the imagery of the yoke pulling multiple ox (me and my fellowship of addicts), and that the yoke (my Church community and addiction recovery group) is perfectly constructed to ease the burden of carrying the addiction, especially when I fall due to my pride. The following verses from the song by Chris Rice called “Come to Jesus” sums it up well:

And like a newborn baby
Don’t be afraid to crawl
And remember when you walk
Sometimes we fall, so
Fall on Jesus
Fall on Jesus
Fall on Jesus and live!