How's this for an invitation to enjoy life??
"Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly."
These words are spoken by Jesus Christ and are quoted from the New Testament in Matthew 11: 29-30 by 'The Message' Bible.
Does the 2nd part of Jesus' words here describe your religious experience? If so, then I'm thrilled that you know Jesus personally and have learned to 'walk with him and work with him'. If not, then I will offer some insight from my own life and experience to see if the Christianity you're living is actually the Christianity you want to be living, and the God you're serving in actually the God you want to serve.
I think the most powerful thing Jesus says here is to, 'walk with me'. I say powerful because I don't think he would make the invitation if he couldn't make it really happen. If Jesus is lying about this being possible, then it would be like me saying to my children that I will reward them if they do their chores, only to withhold the reward after they've completed them.
I realise that you may not trust Jesus well enough to believe this about him; but I do, and when he says that it's possible to not only walk with him, but to walk without anything 'heavy or ill-fitting', I believe that he has provided a way for this to happen exactly as he promised.
It almost sounds too good to be true, doesn't it? Imagine actually enjoying the friendship of Jesus and walking thru life without that sack of heaviness strapped to your back.
It could be that the God you're serving is not the same one who sent his Son Jesus to provide this rest for you. Or, it could be that you have learned some things about him that are not true, and you're struggling under the false expectations you think he has of you. Either way it's not a lot of fun, and it really doesn't sound like the life that Jesus speaks about in the above quote.
I don't think I'm reading the words wrong; it really does sound like Jesus is inviting me to walk with him as a friend, and not a slave! It sounds like he is genuinely concerned for my happiness and not his.
If this is true, then the possibilities are endless and mind-blowing. To think that Jesus, the Son of God who walked the earth 2,000 years ago, performed miracles to restore life to people, died a horrible death to pay for sins cost, defied death by being resurrected; to think that he invites me to walk with and live with him 'freely and lightly', this is truly amazing grace on God's part and a spectacular invitation for me to take him up on.
For me, I'm taking up the offer. There seems to be no end of ways to get bogged down with life's crappiness, and laid down with things to worry and fret about. An invitation like this may seem too good to be true, by I trust Jesus' offer and I'm going to get as close as possible to him to find this freedom.
I'll talk again soon . . .
