All You Who are Weary

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.

Matthew 11:28-29

Four years ago we moved into our house. We had fallen in love with the beautiful views from this house, the nice outside fireplace area, and the fruit trees! Not just fruit trees, but blueberry bushes and 2 small rows of grapevines. Instantly the want-to-be-farm girl in me came out- we could grow our own food! Visions of canning fruit from our fruit trees, making blueberry jam from our bushes, and drying apple slices from our apple trees ran through my head. We thought of all that but, oh innocent little first time homeowners that we were, we did not know just how much work a property like this would entail…

Everything was already a little overgrown when we moved into our new home, so I put pruning- everything- on the to-do list. I had a friend some show me how to prune everything correctly and that spring we made a slight dent in the pruning, we picked a few blueberries and I canned a few pears but then….Life got very busy, our jobs became more demanding and pruning of the fruit trees and grapevines fell to the bottom of our priority list- and stayed there.

Next thing you know I looked out our back window one late winter day and realized that 2 of the wooden supports to hold the grapevines upright had fallen. I announced the happy news of one new project- fixing the grapevine supports- to my husband and as soon as the weather warmed up we were out there pounding stakes into the ground that we could drill to adjoin to the wooden grapevine posts to keep them upright. That worked great all through spring and into summer- until I looked out and saw that the other section of wooden posts (that had not been reinforced) had fallen down and also needed to be reinforced. We went out to fix up our grapevines and I took a good look at them. I realized what the problem was.

Our grapevines were massive at this point; the vines are not supposed to be the massive colossus that had become. The grapevines had grown much too large for the wire and wooden posts they were supported by. The posts were being asked to carry a load that they were never intended to carry.

I’m sure when the previous owners planted the grapevines they had planned, and from all appearances, mostly had kept up with the trimming back of the grapevine every year. But we hadn’t. New growth, upon new growth had added to the weight and size of the vines. Thus our grapevine supports found themselves collapsing under the weight of such a heavy load. Have you ever been in the same position?

Have you found yourself carrying more weight than you were ever meant to carry? One of my favorite hymns is “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” and a line from that song is:

“Oh, what peace we often forfeit,

Oh what needless pain we bear,

All because we do not carry

Everything to God in prayer.”

How many times in our lives have we found ourselves buckling under the weight of everything we decided to carry; but were never meant to carry on our own. In Matthew 11:28 Jesus says, “Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” The King James Version says, “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Come to me. You who are weary. Who are heavy laden. And I will give you rest. Jesus knew we would try to take on more than we should, and that we would need to stop and refocus on Him.

I think sometimes we take on more and more, pile our plate higher with things to do, and then when trouble strikes we buckle and ask God why has He given us all this to bear, instead of going to Him and asking, if He will help us to bear what He meant for us to bear, and to release the things that were never ours to carry. We sometimes forget to ask Him to show us rest.

I went at those grapevines that day and started hacking back the overgrown parts. There is still more that will need done, and it will take some time to get the grapevines back into the shape that they were meant to be in. The same may be true from us. It may take time to get some of the extra things off our todo list. It may take practice remembering to take our cares to God, and years of learning to find rest in Him. But just like it will be worth it when my grapevines finally start bearing good fruit because they only only have a few vines to put their energy into now, so your fruit will be that much sweeter when you are able bear that fruit from a place of joy and peace rather than bitterness from over laden load.

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