My Yoke is Easy
By David Berg - June, 1972
Leadership is a very great responsibility, a heavy burden and just a plain big job of a lot of hard work, tension, confusion, excitement, concerns and physical, mental and nervous strain which tends to be pretty hard on you. Even the Lord Himself could not bear the continual strain and virtue drain of a constant ministry to the multitudes, which is what your ministry really is, so He frequently had to get away from it all and take His disciples up into the mountains or out to sea or on a private visit to friends, for a spiritual retreat, rest and recuperation and inspiration––sometimes even all alone!
No one can continue to keep pouring out to others without spending some time alone with the Lord getting filled up again! I've been in the Lord's Work for half a century and my Mother for half a century before me and my Grandfather for half a century before her, so I know what I'm talking about! As A.B. Simpson, that grand old man of faith, once said, "You cannot do the Master's work without the Master's power!"––And to get it, you must spend time with the Master!
We all need more quiet time alone with the Lord in rest and refilling, drinking at the Living Water of His Word and fellowshipping with Him in the Communion of Prayer and the sweet lovemaking of the Spirit!
None of us can stand these constant pressures of continuous demands on our time, strength, body, soul and spirit to which we are so often forced to submit, without relief, by the press of time, necessity, need and one emergency after another.
But the Lord Himself has said, "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy-laden and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light." And His Word also warns us that we must be "temperate in all things" and "let your moderation be known to all men". If the yoke gets too hard and the burden too heavy, it's not His yoke nor His burden, but our own or someone else's which we've unwisely undertaken or permitted to be placed upon us beyond the Lord's knowledge of our strength and abilities! He Himself will never suffer us to be tempted above that which we are able!
Sometimes we're tempted to take too much upon us, but certainly not by the Lord, and sometimes we allow our strength to be taxed beyond what we know we can wisely endure; and in so doing we often allow ourselves to be pushed beyond the measure of our own faith and suffer the consequences in a physical, mental, nervous or spiritual collapse. Please don't let it happen to you! Take time to be holy.––Wholly His and whole in body, mind and spirit! "Thou shalt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee, because he trusteth in Thee."––Isa.26:3.