I remember grilling hamburgers and hotdogs for a church function. Once they were cooked, I hollered, “Come and Get It!!” The way people began running over, you’d have thought we were handing out gold. Some things are worth running for.
I don’t know if you ran to your phone, tablet or computer to join “Mornings with Bishop Robert” today — but however you came, I’m glad you’re here.
People who are determined to succeed at something are often willing to invest long hours and significant effort into it. As we do, it is far too easy to get our lives out of balance. We confuse our wants and our actual needs far too easily. Someone once said that if you give a pig and a boy everything they want, you’ll get a good pig and a bad boy. We tend to let our desires drive our efforts, but they are not God-inspired desires. So, even when we achieve them, we find the accomplishment empty and unfulfilling. I know of a woman who set a goal of earning a six-figure income by the age of 45. She met her goal at age 38, only to find that nothing changed. All she had was a sense of emptiness when she’d anticipated a sense of achievement. But the triumph was hollow. It was hollow because she’d been tricked.
Sin comes when we take a perfectly natural desire or longing or ambition and try desperately to fulfill it — without God. Not only is it sin to hold God outside of our lives, it is a perverse distortion of the image of the Creator in us. All these good things, and all our security, are rightly found only and completely in Him. And when we allow Him to lead us, to direct us to the successes that He intended for us, we find great joy in their fulfillment.
Today’s verse says COME TO ME ALL YOU WHO LABOR AND ARE HEAVILY BURDENED, AND I WILL GIVE YOU REST
The rest He offers us is rest from futile labor, rest from the demands of performance and achievement as the world measures it. His ways are not ours, but as we pursue what calls us to pursue, we find that He has already placed the perfect skills, gifts, desires and understanding in us so that we can excel at that which He has designed us to do. Have you ever heard the expression that someone was “born to” a certain thing? That phrase is the embodiment of walking in the calling and gifting of God. He created good works for you to walk in, and He created them long before you ever existed. God knows precisely what He has created you to be and to do. Since He does, He has given you the exact mix of spiritual gifts and abilities you need to succeed. Will they need to be discovered and developed? Of course. But the most fulfilling thing in the world you will ever do is the thing He created you for. Nothing will satisfy the longing of your heart the way that will.
It can be very tough to focus on the right goal! We hold back because we don’t have the heart to seek Him or the determination to press on and take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of us! We get distracted. We settle for second (or ninth) best. C.S. Lewis, a renowned 20th century Christian author said it best. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition, when infinite joy is offered to us. Like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in the slums because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. And, if I might add, far too easily distracted. He offers us that which, though it requires effort, also gives us rest.
COME TO ME ALL YOU WHO LABOR AND ARE HEAVILY BURDENED, AND I WILL GIVE YOU REST
LABOR is the effort at production, and being heavily burdened comes from carrying things that are weighing us down. But God’s rest comes when we see what He has called us to do and who He has called us to be, and then pursue that until we possess it.
Paul McCartney composed a song for the 1969 film The Magic Christian. (Trust me when I tell you that the only thing “Christian” about the film is the inclusion of the word in its title.) But the words of McCartney’s song from the soundtrack apply here.
“If you want it – Here it is, Come and get it. Make your mind up fast.” Here it is!!! The best that life has to give, the thing that will bring you the greatest pleasure and sense of fulfillment — GOD’S WILL FOR YOUR LIFE. Make up your mind fast, because you don’t want to miss a minute of what He has for you.
“If you want it – Anytime I can give it. But you better hurry ’cause it may not last.” God will open the way to you whenever you turn to Him. He can give you His wisdom and direction ANYTIME. But hurry!! Every day you wait there are lost opportunities to grow, to use the gifts and talents He gives you to advance His kingdom. God can give you His gifts ANYTIME — Why not now ??
COME TO ME ALL YOU WHO LABOR AND ARE HEAVILY BURDENED, AND I WILL GIVE YOU REST
