FINDING MEANING IN LIFE (Part Three)
We are continuing our thought on how a Christian can find meaning and satisfaction in life. In our last newsletter we saw that man is a tripartite being made up of spirit, soul, and body. We further saw that a person cannot possibly find meaning and satisfaction apart from a personal relationship with God through the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the first step toward finding meaning and satisfaction. After receiving the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior, God begins a work in a person’s life in which He desires to bring meaning and satisfaction in their lives. We learn this from the following verse: (Matthew 11:28-30), “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.” The phrase, “my yoke is easy” means well-fitting, and carries the idea that when a person gets saved, they are placed in the kingdom of God and that God has provided everything that person will ever need in their lives in order to fully enjoy life.
To understand what the above verse means, we must first understand what, in the human condition, causes a person to become exhausted spiritually, emotionally, and physically.
Spiritually – a person becomes exhausted when they spend their lifetime searching for God and trying to earn His love by following a long line of meaningless religious laws and vain rituals, and in the end, God is still faraway and unapproachable.
Emotionally – a person becomes exhausted because exhaustion is the result of a person doing all the right things and abiding by all the rules, and yet internal stress leaves them without any means to withstand the stress of their environment.
Physically – a person becomes exhausted when, through their own neglect, they push themselves far beyond their physical endurance or when internal stress depletes their energy reserves.
Christ promised rest from life’s exhaustion if a person would “take His yoke upon themselves and learn of Him.” The yoke to which Christ referred to in this passage is the yoke that was placed upon oxen for working. Growing up as a carpenter, Jesus, no doubt, fitted and made many yokes for oxen. Yokes were made so that the oxen could work longer and more efficiently. These yokes were made of wood and had to be measured and fitted perfectly, so that, when, two oxen were pulling together, each animal would carry equal shares of the work.
Christ fitted these yokes perfectly for the animals and in the book of Matthew; He tells us that He also fits the yoke perfectly for man. The phrase, “my yoke is easy” as we have already seen means, “well-fitting” and as the “well-fitting” yoke upon the oxen relieved them from exhaustion so they could carry equal shares of burdens and work longer, even so the yoke of Christ frees man from the exhaustions that he faces in life. Christ can give a person rest from spiritual exhaustion, emotional exhaustion, and physical exhaustion with His well-fitting yoke.
What I mean by this is, mankind is a physical, emotional, and spiritual being with God given needs and desires. And for every God given need and desire that man has, there is a God given fulfillment. When these needs are met God’s way with His well-fitted yoke, there is rest in a person’s life. But when a person is driven to meet their God given needs and desires in ungodly ways, without His well-fitted yoke, their attempts will end in futility and frustration, leaving them without satisfaction and meaning in life.
If you have not responded to Jesus’ invitation to come unto Him and be saved I urge you to do so. In our next newsletter, we will begin looking at how a believer can have their Godly needs and desires met in Godly ways that will bring satisfaction and meaning to their life.