“Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:29-30 (NIV)
The verse above helped me understand that walking with Jesus and learning from Jesus was a beautiful way to live life. However, about 10 years ago, the verse became even clearer to me as I herded first graders on a school field trip. Our small group of kids absorbed the sights in an outdoor farm museum set in the 1850’s. Suddenly before us loomed two humungous oxen attached to each other with a yoke!
How excited we were to see these oxen in action! But spiritually, I grew even more excited as I observed the actual yoke and how closely it pulled the oxen together. This yoked action of walking together displayed what Jesus wants from us! To walk near him, moving in tandem with his spirit, following his ways, never straying from the path but striding together to accomplish our work.
This verse continued to feed my spiritual life, but it wasn’t until several years later that I focused on verse 30 which says, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Reflections arose in my soul. Sometimes I felt too distracted to walk well with Jesus. I had to keep steering myself back. It didn’t seem easy at all. Maybe I was making it hard? And what about his burden? Does walking with Jesus burden us? Hasn’t he promised to carry our burdens? What burden could he possibly want us to carry?
A few more weeks of studying the mystery of this “light” burden led me to the two greatest commandments every Christian should follow: to love God and to love others along with ourselves. I discovered that Jesus’ burden is love.
He asks us to carry love wherever we go.
Love for our Creator.
Love for each person we know.
Love for each person we don’t know.
Love for ourselves.
Our need to carry Jesus’ burden of love became crystal clear as I read the love chapter, 1 Corinthians 13, and remembered,the greatest of these is love.Peter, one who learned firsthand from Jesus wrote, “Above all things love one another deeply, for love covers a multitude of sins.” 1 Peter 4:8 Above all things!! And John, another student of Jesus reminds us, “God is love.”
As believing Christians, we carry God within us, and if God is love, then we carry love. Love is available at every moment to share with whomever needs it (even ourselves).
Henry Drummond writes about love in his small but mighty book called The Greatest Thing in the World: Experiencing the Enduring Power of Love. He surfaces nine qualities from 1 Corinthians 13 to guide our journeys of love: patience, kindness, generosity, humility, courtesy, unselfishness, good temper, guilelessness (believing the best), and sincerity. Drummond says, “To love abundantly is to live abundantly.”
The premise of love is clear. The practice of love fulfills, yet the practice can present challenges. This scripture from John offers the solution to effectively carry the burden of love. “As we live in God, our love grows more perfect.” 1 John 4:17 (NLT) When we choose God’s ways, our capacity to love expands, imitating the love that God shares with us.
God has promised to carry every burden with us, so as we carry Jesus’ burden, the burden of love, we will be led by the Author of Love himself.
**Enjoy a bonus poem below, titled The Burden of Love.
Reaching in (allowing God’s word to work in your soul): Saturate your soul with love by reading 1 Corinthians 13 or 1 John 4: 7-19 or both!
Reaching out (taking God’s word into the world): Each day, ask God to help you carry his burden of love to the world.
The Burden of Love
by Janice M. Gibson
Only one burden
I ask of you.
To carry the burden of love.
Love for me:
Devoted and persevering,
pouring from a servant’s heart.
Love for others.
Love for Creation.
Love for yourself.
Accepting. Forgiving. Caring.
Spreading the fruit of kindness, goodness and joy
so every life may bloom into my heart of love.
Bear no other burdens,
except the burden of love.
Living 4 Him 
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