Welcome to another podcast of Struggling Well. And since I did such a bangup job last week of introducing. I've got the privilege of introducing this podcast again. you know, we're going to talk a little bit more about suffering and struggle, but, we are not wrapping it up this week. I want that to be very clear. we will probably speak about suffering a lot in the next year, if not longer. So, we are not, this is not a wrapup of struggling or suffering. You're looking at me with hairy eyeballs.
No, I'm looking at you because particular because this podcast is called Struggling. Well,
there you go. I told you we're going to change the title to Everything Works Out Fine. That's what we're going to change it to.
Let me know when that happens.
But anyway, in all seriousness, as we have been going through these weeks of just, you know, where our brains have been completely turned to mush and our hearts have been aching. scripture has become so important and alive to us. And I've been reading in a devotional or listening to it. I can't remember which. And they were referencing Matthew 11:28. And it's the passage that you're familiar with. And again, I'm reading from the NLT when Jesus said to the disciples and to the to all of us, "Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light. it seems like an oxymoron to me that you would rest in suffering. we spoke last week about being still or maybe the week before being still and knowing that God is who he says he is. but Jesus says, "Come to me with all those heavy burdens and I'm going to give you a rest that is not of the rest that you're thinking of putting your feet up on some island somewhere. but taking on the yoke that he gives you that there is rest in that. that's just mind-blowing to me.
Yeah. Come to me and learn from me. So there's something that's not inherent within me that I can understand that I've got to learn from him. So as you take on his yoke, which is easy, is it's learning what it means to be a follower of his and to link myself with him in the design that he has for life. and it and he says it's if you're burdened and weary because you've tried every other way, I can give you something that will provide you rest, which seems to be like you said, the two don't seem congruent with each other.
You know how people often say God will not give you more than you can handle, which is not it's not biblical. It's not it's that line we give. We're trying to comfort people. and the because I often think when I look at other people or even myself sometimes like God no more this I cannot take anymore this you're telling me your yoke is light and it feels anything but light but the truth of it is God will not give you anything more than what he handles it not me
when I rest in him he handles it I read this really great prayer I wish I'd written it but I did not and I don't know who the author is. So I whoever wrote this, if you're happen to be listening, thank you so much. But this is the prayer that they prayed. Teach me, oh God, to learn to rest in your grace and providence more and worry less. I want to surrender my burdens to Jesus and let him teach me his way and how to find his rest. But sometimes I'm so tired and weary. I don't think I can continue. So please, dear father, let me find rest in Jesus. And that's an important thing that we want to share with you today is that there is really rest in him that when we try to figure it out ourselves and wrestle with it in our own head and heart that we don't find rest. We find more chaos.
Yeah. And I think one of the other things that causes us not to find rest is the game of comparison that we do with I'm struggling with something and going through something and I look at somebody near to me, close to me and I Lord, why am I going through this and they're not?
I mean, at the end of the day, when Jesus was wrapping things up after the resurrection with the disciples and he talks about Peter and Peter's end of Peter's life, Peter immediately goes to John and says, "Well, what about him?"
Yeah.
Because Peter feels like that it's a big heavy thing that it's going to happen to Peter and he's concerned and he's going to compare himself of John which is going to rob the rest that Jesus offers them. So journeys are different and they don't look the same. And I think one of the things that takes away the rest that I can find that Jesus promises if I follow him is when I start comparing myself to other followers of Jesus and they don't have the same journey I do.
And could it be this is just a thought off the top of my head. So could it be that sometimes when God has allowed us to go through a time of suffering and we begin to rest in him that we do find rest and peace. And in the midst of that suffering though, we can also go another way and we can then bring in a suffering that we have authored that do you know what I mean? Like it's like I'm suffering but then I kind of just stay in that suffering in a I'm having a hard time explaining this. It's not that suffering should end. It's just that then I compound it. because my view of God gets all messed up in my head. So then I'm not resting in him.
I'm wrestling with him in a bad way, not in a good way.
Yeah. And I think those things are all possible things that happen to us. And again, it's going to sound simplistic and it's not. It's simple, but it's not simplistic. and that is I link myself I yoke myself to Jesus
and I learn it from him and I learn his ways and then I seek to follow his ways. And here's the other part of it, Suzi. It'll never be done perfectly here on this earth.
Yeah.
It never will because I still live in a body that is capable of sinning and going its own way. and that the redemption that has been provided through Calvary will not be completed until Christ returns one day and makes all things new again. Makes them gardenlike. If we go back to the big meta story of creation and what it was like in the garden. The difference in the end, it's garden-like, but there's no there will be no sin. There will be no disobedience. What Adam and Eve did will not happen in eternity in the new heavens and the new earth
because Satan's bound. He's finished. He's done with. And so there's nothing there. And so that's why when it come to the end of this story in Revelation, it the John says, "He who testifies to these things says surely I am coming soon." Jesus saying that I'm coming. soon. Amen. And then the three-word prayer that I think is should be there for all of us is come, Lord Jesus. Come.
Yeah.
Come. I mean, I there's a part of me more so today than ever that I long for him to come back again.
Yeah.
Because the struggle does become intense sometimes. And where I think what the verses that you read in Matthew are the perfect verses for how I'm to live in this life, I also have a forward looking to eternity of Lord Jesus, come on back cuz I don't I'm tired of the struggle.
The idea of Satan being bound is a really it's a great concept, a great idea, the truth from God's word because he knows my Achilles heel and he when I'm in a bad place, when I'm struggling and right now with the struggle that we're in the midst of it's fascinating the way he comes and kind of nails on certain things. You know that little picture of an angel on one shoulder, the devil on the other shoulder, right?
And that's a caricature. But so often I hear those whispers like he did to Adam and Eve, did God really say, "Is he really going to give you rest? Is he really going to comfort you?" Or saying, "Hey, this is, you know, this suffering is so painful and you're never going to feel anything but pain."
Right? And that reality is there for all of us. And that's where I think we come to the one who offers rest to the one who offers us a sense of rest in the midst of the struggle. Not that the struggle is going to go away even.
No.
But that I can find I can find a different pathway to face that when I come to him and I find rest in him. And then ultimately come on back Jesus when you're we're ready. Anytime.
Quickly, please.
Quickly. Have a great week. Thanks for joining us. To learn more about the Struggling Well podcast, visit tandemspirituality. com.