REST
[p. 117] REST
Neither attainment, nor devotion, nor service gives rest to the soul. We must do two things: “take my yoke upon you”, and “learn from me”. For the first, the great difficulty lies in our having a will of our own; and the more our intelligence increases the more our own will asserts its right to dictate; but this is not Christ’s yoke. He, with unbounded and correct intelligence, sought and accorded to His Father’s will. He did not reason that results ought to correspond with work efficiently done. This is our way, and therefore, strange to say, we are often in well-doing further from the yoke of Christ than when sensible of failure. The yoke of Christ is looking for God’s mind and purpose irrespective of our own works, be they good or bad. No one worked so efficiently as Christ did, yet when He sees it unproductive, He is not only resigned, but He gives thanks! The Father’s will is more grateful to Him than the result that He might have righteously expected. He bears to see all His work in vain, and rests Himself in the will of His Father. Now we go through many humblings before we take His yoke upon us. If we do right, Jonah-like, we think we do well to be angry. We have no rest to our souls, because our work is not attended with the deserved result. Jonah must go through the sorrow and humbling of the loss of the gourd before he will take up the yoke of Christ. Either I think God is not just in not requiting my deserts, or, that He is so righteous that He cannot have a gracious purpose towards me. In either case it is myself that is before me. It is plain that in both cases I only need to find His mind - the yoke of Christ - and I should be at rest. The more we feel that we are suffering for righteousness,
[p. 118] the longer we are before we submit to the yoke of Christ. How often is the soul detained longer in trial when there is a feeling, possibly a just feeling (as Joseph had), of self-righteousness, while another is humbled and broken down at once in the sense of his sin as David was, or Peter. Joseph is detained in prison for two years, probably to teach him that in God, and not in his own righteousness, he must depend and wait His will.
When once you have submitted to the yoke, the learning begins - “learn from me”. How blessed! God’s counsel is opened to you, as to Jacob, to Jonah, and even to a David and a Peter. How each one is taught the counsel of God, and learns at length to be thankful because of it! a sore, and a death-like struggle in every case, crushing and death to one’s own will and feelings, before ever the soul enters with Christ into the counsel of God. But once it is there it is at ‘rest’ - it must be satisfied.
“Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest to your souls”.