Easy and Light: How to Find Rest for Your Soul

If you are a busy woman like me, you don't need anyone to tell you to rest. Your question is how—how am I supposed to do that? Rest is hard because we’'ve been taught that harder is better and weary is a badge of honor. But Jesus says His yoke is easy and His burden is light—not because there's no work involved, but because He's carrying it with you. So today I'm unpacking the three invitations Jesus gives us in Matthew 11 to experience true rest for our souls. Stay tuned.

I found myself really reflecting earlier this year on what it means to truly rest in Christ because I have a bad habit of running on empty without realizing it.  It all started at my 40th birthday party. I had an amazing party with all those that I love—my family and my friends. And at the end of the party, two of my really good friends decided to pray over me. And I appreciated that, but what really stood out was one of my friends said, "As I was praying for you, the Lord put this particular verse on my heart to share with you." And it was just so timely. It wasn't something I had thought about recently, but you know how, when you hear something, and it's just exactly what you needed to hear at that time to kind of refocus you and get your mind where it needed to be?

She cited Matthew 11:28-30 that says, "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

And there were two words that really stood out to me in this particular verse. I've read it so many times in my entire life. And you know how Scripture is—it's alive and active. And God will illuminate different things in different seasons of your life. But in this particular season, what really stood out to me were the words easy and light. Because if I'm honest, the way I had been moving and operating and living had been quite different. I wouldn't describe my life, and the decisions I was making, as necessarily easy and light—not because they couldn't be, but because I think we have some misconceptions about ease. We think it means lazy, and we think that harder somehow means better. And Jesus is actually inviting us to a different pace of life, one that I think our souls crave.

In fact, in this passage, Jesus gives us three invitations to experience his true rest. And I'm not talking about just physical rest—go take a nap—because I'm pretty sure we've all been in a situation where we've taken a nap and we woke up and we're still tired. Jesus is talking to that deeper fatigue that reaches down to our innermost being and our need for rest in our souls.

And so today, I want to unpack what each of these invitations that Jesus gives us mean and how we can actually live them out so that we can experience this soul rest that Jesus is promising us in the Bible.

But first, I want to slow down for a second and talk about what a yoke is, because Jesus is saying take his yoke and his yoke is easy. What in the world does that mean?

So Jesus is speaking to a people who understood what a yoke was. It's a wooden frame that joins two oxen together so that they can pull a heavy load. Now in this way it’s talking about caring a heavy physical load but in Jesus' day, the religious leaders at the time had placed a heavy spiritual load or yoke on the people that they had to follow all these endless rules and impossible standards, constantly striving through their works to prove that they were good enough for God, when that's just not possible. They were creating a standard for the people that they could not meet namking it heavy. 

And here's the thing—we're still doing this to ourselves today. And it's probably the reason why some of us are so tired, so fatigued, why we need rest in the first place. We pile on expectations: be a better mom, the best mom, show up perfectly at work, keep the house together and Pinterest perfect, maintain all the relationships and keep everyone happy, serve at church, grow the business, stay healthy, look put together. Oh my gosh, I'm just exhausted listing out all of these standards that we put on ourselves.

That is a yoke, and it's heavy. And under all of that, we're exhausted. And Jesus sees it, and he knows that we're in this place. And he's saying to us, "I'm not the one that's giving you this load. My yoke doesn't look like that." He understands that we have obligations and responsibilities and things that have to get done. The bills have got to get paid, okay? We understand. He understands that. But he's offering us to carry it in a different way—in a way where it doesn't have to be so heavy.

3 Invitations to True Rest in Christ

INVITATION 1: COME TO CHRIST

So the first invitation Jesus gives us is to come to him. He says, "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

And what I love about this statement is that he's saying, "I understand that you're tired. I understand that you have work. I understand that you have things to do. And I'm not asking you to stop doing them, but I'm saying in the midst of it, come to me." Because the rest that he has is for those who are working. It's for those who are heavy-laden. Rest isn't for those that don't work, it's for those that do. And it's us, the workers, the ones wit loads and responsibiityies that feel to heavy to carry, who are called to come to Jesus.

The problem is that we guilt ourselves for being tired when we're supposed to be tired. There's actually nothing wrong with being tired. I love Isaiah 40:30 that says, "Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall." God is saying, "I expect you to get tired. And I'm the one who will renew your strength, so you need to come to me."

We are meant to take our heavy load to Jesus, not to try to figure it out all on our own. And so the invitation here, the first invitation for those who labor and are heavy laden, is to come to Jesus. Bring your labor with you, and bring your heavy burden with you. He's not asking you to have it all together. He's instead inviting you to come as you are: tired, overwhelmed, at the end of yourself. In fact, I've learned that's usually where God does his best work, because then we're in a position now to stop striving and we're more open to the rest that He has for us.

I want to ask you: what are you carrying right now that's making you weary? Jesus is saying, "Bring it to me." Not work harder, not pull yourself together, not "get it together." I say this so much, so I understand. But I hear so many women say, "I just got to get my life together. I got to get it together." What does that mean? Go to Jesus. He keeps saying, "Come to me." He's saying, "Don't get it together. Just come to me right now. Come." That's your first invitation.

But here's where a lot of us get stuck. We come to Jesus, we pray, we bring our burdens to Him in the morning—and then we get up and carry them right back out the door with us. We come to Jesus, but then we go back to doing everything alone. We pray about it, and then we work like it's still all up to us.

This is why Jesus doesn't stop with the first invitation. Because coming to Him isn't just a one-time moment. It's learning to walk with Him throughout the day and that's what His second invitation is all about.

INVITATION 2: TAKE HIS YOKE AND LEARN FROM CHRIST

The second invitation that Jesus gives us is to take his yoke and to learn from him. He says, "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me."

Now, the problem that we have with this invitation is that when we do work, we're often working for God and not with God. That means when we're working, we're trying to do it all by ourselves. We're trying to do it all alone. And Jesus is saying, "When I say come to me so I can give you rest, I'm not saying stop working." He understands work needs to be done, as I've said before. He's saying, "You don't have to work alone."

And we're tired because we're working by ourselves. We're tired because we're working for God and not with him. We haven't accepted his invitation to work together. The Bible tells us that we are co-laborers with Christ—not sole laborers on our own, but we are to be working with Him. This means going into work with a posture that trusts it’s not all on you and that God will do His part. 

I was creating a video one day, and I felt so stressed at the end of the day. I was so tired and fatigued, and I could not understand why. And I was like, "God, I did my journaling. I took my walk. I did all the physical things I knew I needed to do to rest." But as I was working, I felt so rushed. I felt so stressed. And God helped me realize I was working as if it were all on me, and He wasn’t involved. But if I’m honest, I do this because I want control of the work, and this is why many of us are carrying the burden of trying to do everything on our own instead of accepting His invitation to work with Him, because we know that if we take on the responsibility by ourselves, we can try to keep control. So, for it to go the way we want and be exactly the way we want it to be, we have to be in control.

But it is our need for control that is depleting our souls. And let me tell you something: it's not worth it. If you get everything right, you finally get your life together, and it's exactly the way you wanted it to be, but your soul is depleted, it's not worth it.

Our need for control is why a lot of us are so tired. If we want things to be exactly our way, we have to do them all ourselves to ensure that. And that is going to take something from us that a lot of us don't want to give. But when we have a heart shift and we allow for imperfections, when we allow things not to always go our way, when we can adjust our expectations, that means we don't have to do everything. We can let things happen as God would have them to. We can let him have his way. And oh my gosh, we can let somebody else do it.

This was a very important lesson I had to learn early on in my marriage. I'm sure a lot of my mamas can understand—you know, when it comes to anything around the house or how we take care of the kids, we want it to be so particular. And our husbands, God bless their souls, they just don't do things the way that we do, do they?

And one of the most important lessons that I had to learn was to let Donald flow the way that God called him to so that he can parent and lead and I can just get out of his way. When I leave the kids with Donald, I know that he's going to do things differently than I do, but guess what? They're going to be fed. They're going to be taken care of. They're going to be happy. It's going to be okay. And it gives me the space and the freedom I need to rest.

Sometimes we have to let other people help us carry the load, even though it's going to look different from what we want or expect. But that's the only way that we'll find rest from having to control everything.55                                                                                                                                                  

So how do we take Jesus' yoke? We learn His rhythms of rest and work. Like I said, rest doesn't mean do nothing, and work doesn't mean do everything. Both should be done with Christ. We can rest, knowing when it's time to rest. We can take a break, knowing that, you know what, whatever I'm not doing right now, God has it under control. I can't touch and control every single thing every single moment of every single day, but God can. And if I'm not working on it, I'm trusting that God's got it handled.

And when I'm working, I'm working with God. I'm trusting that He's with me. I'm trusting that He's giving me everything that I need. I'm trusting that He will provide. I'm trusting that it's not all on me to get it perfect, get it right, and do it all. Aligning yourself with God's priorities, rather than your expectations of perfection or anyone else's expectations of you, is what gives us true soul rest.

If you are trying to control everything because you want it done your way, what would it look like to let that go? What type of rest could you invite into your life if you did that?

Now, here's what I've discovered: we can hear these invitations—come to me, take my yoke—and they sound beautiful. But if we're honest, a lot of us still won't do it. We'll nod our heads, we'll say amen, but we'll walk away and keep carrying everything on our own. And the reason why is simple: we don't trust Who's on the other end of that yoke.

We won't come to Jesus if we don't trust His heart toward us. We won't surrender control if we don't believe He's actually a good God. And that's why Jesus doesn't just give us invitations, He reveals His character in them.

INVITATION 3: TRUST HIS CHARACTER

The final invitation that Jesus gives us is an invitation to trust his character. He says, "For I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls."

What prevents us from coming to Jesus and taking his yoke, from accepting those first two invitations, is always that we don't trust His character. We don't trust that He is who He says he is. Belief and trust are prerequisites to taking action. If you don't believe something, you won't take action on it. And so, as beautiful as these invitations that Jesus is giving us to rest in Him are, we will not accept the invitation truly, wholeheartedly, to receive His rest if we don't trust His character.

And Jesus is making it very clear what His character is. But we won't come to him with our burdens and take up his yoke and learn from him when we have a wrong picture of who he is—when we think that He's harsh when we fall short, when we think that He's disappointed when we mess up, when we think that He's distant and hard to please, when we think that God pushes us like horses when instead the Bible tells us that He leads us like sheep.

The truth is, Jesus tells us His character in this Scripture for a very important reason, so that we'll believe it. He tells us, "I am gentle and lowly." He is gentle—not harsh, not demanding, not selfishly possessive or overly critical. This is a God that you can come to in your weaknesses, a God that you can trust to carry your burdens for you. Jesus says that he is lowly. He's humble. He's approachable. He's not standing over you with some checklist waiting for you to get it wrong.

We need to trust that He is who He says He is because Jesus doesn't make it a mystery. He makes it plain and clear. He's gentle. He's lowly. He's exactly what you need when you're overwhelmed. And our invitation to truly receive his rest is to believe that. When we try to be these perfect Christian women, we are pushing a boulder that we could never move on our own. But when we trust that God is helping us, molding us, transforming us, He's the one who will make us into who He called us to be. He will do it. He will make it happen. And we don't have to. We can do our part and trust that he will do his.

And when we do, we receive the promise: rest for our souls. Jesus says His yoke is easy, and His burden is light. We've been taught that the Christian life is about grinding, striving, and carrying heavy loads, especially if you're a woman. We’ve been fed the lie that faithfulness means exhausting yourself to no end, that if you're not overwhelmed, you're not doing enough. But Jesus is telling us the complete opposite. He's saying, "My yoke is easy. My burden is light. You've been lied to." You've been bamboozled, and it's time for us to open our eyes and walk in the light.

Now let's be clear. Jesus isn't saying that there's no work involved. He's saying that the yoke He gives you is easy and his burden is light because he's the one carrying it with you.

Easy here doesn't mean effortless. It means fitting—like this yoke was made for you. Whatever it is that He's calling you to, He's anointed you for. Light doesn't mean weightless. It means bearable because you're not carrying it alone. Easy is not lazy, and harder is not better. Weary is not a badge of honor. It's time for us to let Jesus do the heavy lifting for us.

When we come to Jesus, when we take his yoke, when we learn from Him and experience His gentleness and humility, we are finally able to rest from the pressure of feeling that we need to prove ourselves, rest from the anxiety of trying to control everything, rest from the fear that we're not doing enough. This is the rest that doesn't depend on your circumstances changing or your life being perfect. It's the rest that comes from being yoked with the Savior of our souls.

So Jesus is giving us three invitations today: Come to me with your labor and your heavy burdens. Take his yoke and work with him, not just for him. And trust his character. He is gentle, he is lowly, and he loves you. And when you place your faith in him, you will not only find rest for your soul, but salvation, more importantly.

But here's what I want you to hear most clearly: this rest isn't just about feeling less tired. It's about relationship. It's about knowing the God who loves you so much that He sent His Son to die for you so that you could have eternal rest—not just for your soul today, but forever. Jesus didn't just come to make your life easier. He came to give you life. And when you place your faith in Him, you don't just find rest—you find eternal salvation.

Now, if worry and anxiety are keeping you from experiencing this rest that Jesus promises, I created something just for you. It's my free Worry-Free Bible Study, and it's designed to help you break the cycle of worry by replacing the lies you believe with the truth of God's Word. You can download it right now at belovedwomen.org, or if you want even more daily encouragement, you can access it inside the Beloved Women app along with hundreds of other Bible studies and teachings to help you grow your faith.

As always, thank you so much for being here. Until next time, be beautiful, be blessed, and beloved.