55 : Bible Study With Mari - Matthew 11:28-30

Um, I hope your guys' lent is also fruitful and. Is just a season of spiritual growth and drawing closer to the Lord and strengthening your faith and your relationship with Jesus. Um. And if it's been hard, I've had hard lunch before too, and it's rough hanging there. Just another couple weeks before Easter. Um, for Lent this year I gave up using my screens after 8:00 PM and that is just like all screens, not just tv.

It's basically like I put my phone away and I don't open my computer or turn the TV on, starting at 8:00 PM Um. And then I added daily mass Monday through Friday to my schedule. Um, and that was just something that I had been wanting to do for a while and just hadn't like, honestly had the discipline to do it. Um. And I'm really, really glad that sometimes we need a good Lent, you know, to like give us a kick in the butt. And I'm really glad that I did that for Lent this year.

Um, and I usually add like a devotional or some sort of like program that I'm doing and I. I had every full intention to do Ascensions program, like on their app of the Seven Deadly Sins, which I can probably still access post lent, I hope. Um, but I didn't actually end up doing it, which I'm bummed because it looked so good. I need to just like. Be okay with starting late if I still want to do it.

'cause it, it sounds so interesting to me, but a part of me has been like, kind of hard on myself being like, wow, you didn't add like a specific devotional or a prayer or like, you were gonna do this like, you know, app program and then you didn't. And part of me wants to feel like I failed in, um, and maybe y'all don't experience this, maybe I'm just too hard on myself. Um. But I keep feeling almost like the love of God, just being like, you have sought out like me.

You know, like you've received me every day in, and you've sought out like communion with me in the mass. Like nothing is a greater gift than that. Like, don't be hard on yourself. Like, I'm with you. And so I've just allowed myself to kind of like, yeah, just like feel that peace and that consolation and know that I. That like what I'm doing is enough and it's actually like such a big gift to myself, to my faith life, and a gift to the Lord, um, to show up at daily mass every day.

Um, and it's, I just, I'm bringing this up because I just feel like it ties in with today's episode. We're gonna do a little Bible study. Um, I've only done one other Bible study episode before and I got so much feedback saying people loved it and they wanted more of 'em. And I just recently thought, wow, I haven't done it in. Forever. I mean, it's probably been like six months or so. So we're gonna do another one today and it's gonna be on finding true rest in God.

And so the reason I bring up just this experience that I've had throughout Lent and going to Mass is because I feel like I'm finding rest and peace in my life more than I have experienced in the past year of my life probably than ever.

Um, and I. If I sit and reflect, I really believe it's because I'm going to mass every day, and therefore it's because I'm finding rest in God himself and relying on him to give me the graces necessary, you know, to go about my life and my day, and to answer God's call in my life. And I just bring this up because I think this is something we all seek and it's something we're all yearning for, is lasting peace and rest, especially in just the culture we live in today.

I feel like we glorify busyness and we worship productivity and we can't rest un until we're, you know, done with our to-do list, which by the way, never ends. Um. And it's almost like we try and outdo each other with busyness or we like pride ourselves off of our busyness and that's just not how God wants us to live. That's not how he created us to live, and I feel like it is the work of the evil one.

I. Working to distract us and keep us busy and distracted on so many other things, whether they're good or bad. I'm not saying all the things that we do are bad, like we could be distracted with really good things. Um, but he keeps us distracted and tired and, um. Yeah, just like constantly pouring out and not making time to be poured into which we can only seek from God the father, um, from spending time with Jesus in prayer and seeking him in just different ways throughout our life.

So I. I think this is just a realization that I've just been coming to in the past few weeks. It's like, wow, I feel, I feel rest in the Lord and no matter like what's going on in my life, or you know, a busyness of schedule that I have or whatever, like I don't feel that same like I. I don't even know what to call it, like pressure, like heavy tiredness. I don't feel a heavy tiredness. I, I feel like a lightness of heart, a lightness in my body, in my face, in my chest.

Um, and I think it's really because the Lord is providing, the Lord is sustaining. Um. And I, I host a Bible study at my house every week. And that's one thing that we talked about briefly, kind of on the same topic. Um, last night in Bible study was one of the women shared how, you know, she's a mother and she is, you know, trying to learn how to like mother her children and trust in God. And, um.

Basically like do things well and like have all this energy to do things, um, and to trust that she's doing things well and to trust her children as they grow into these different stages and trust God that he's gonna take care of 'em and all these different things, um, that I. You know, in fears that I'm sure a lot of new moms feel, or you may feel it entering into the season of engagement or marriage and being like, how the heck am I gonna be a good wife? Um, yeah.

Or, or starting a new job or just anything. Right. That like, we feel like inadequate in, um. And we talked about how in these moments you can put it back on the Lord, you can go to the Lord and say like, Lord, this is how I'm feeling in my vocation in this calling. You asked of me in my job, in a relationship I have in a friendship, um, or in my relationship with you, right? And just feel like I feel inadequate, I feel tired, I feel lost. IX, Y, Z, like can't actually.

Do this the way that you would want me to, um, because the truth is you can't, you can't trust the way God like calls us to trust You can't love the way he calls us to love because we're human and we're broken. He actually calls us to rely on him to be given the grace to do these things. And so we talked about last night how we can put it back on the Lord and we can say, okay, Lord, like. Please give me the grace to trust.

Please give me a greater gift of faith, a greater gift of hope, a greater gift of, um, patience. And, you know, whatever the virtue is you're seeking to grow in whatever gift of the Holy Spirit that you wanna ask for and go to him faithfully, continually, go to mass, receive him, and ask for these things in humility, and he will give them to you. He will, he absolutely will.

But I think so often we just feel like we need to do things ourselves and we kind of like pick ourselves up by our bootstraps and we're like, yep, we just gotta work hard and we just gotta put our head down and we just gotta do the things God calling us to do and gotta be a good Christian and a good Catholic. And, and if you're struggling, we, you just gotta do it harder, right? You just gotta work harder. You just gotta trust better or have greater faith. Um, and.

No, like we can ask for these things as a gift from God in humility and he will give it to us. So just wanted to kind of preface this conversation with that and basically share my experience of just like finding peace and rest and realizing that no shock, it's because I'm. Going to the Lord, going to the Lord often. And I just want to share that in this place of consolation right now to encourage you to do the same thing.

So we're gonna open up our Bibles and just pull from scripture to guide our conversation. Um, so we're gonna turn to Matthew chapter 11. Matthew chapter 11 verses 28 through 30. So not very long. Just a couple verses and I'll just go ahead and read it. Um, and so let's just do some like lexio. Dina, if you can, um, I'll read it and then allow yourself to maybe pause the recording and take some time to ask the Holy Spirit to kind of shed light on what you just heard.

If you have the time, you know to stop for a moment. If not, that's okay. You can just keep it going and listen to the rest of the Bible study. But if you have time to sit down and do a little prayer s session with me, go ahead and do it, and we can do it together. So Matthew Levin, verse 28 through 30 reads. Come to me, all who labor and our heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. So I'll read it one more time and I just want you to listen and kind of just see where your heart is moved. Where are you, um, you know, what word are you being drawn to, or what phrase are you being drawn to? Where is your heart leaning towards as I'm reading? And just see what stands out to you. One more time. Come to me all who labor and our heavy laden and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and lowly and heart, and you'll find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. So I think what stands out to me right off the bat is in verse 29, at the end it says, and you will find rest for your souls. That to me is.

So powerful because I feel like the way we try and seek rest in our day to day is honestly by like numbing ourselves is by just zoning out, you know, like scrolling on your phone or throwing on a TV show. Um, or maybe just listening to a podcast or a music. And again, not to say any of these is bad, but I find myself doing this often of just like, oh, I'm super tired, or I'm just like exhausted for something from something.

Or. I just feel overwhelmed and my initial reaction is to like lay on the couch and pull out my phone and open Instagram or, um, yeah, like lay on my bed and like throw a show on or something like that. And while that is, you know, maybe a form of like. Maybe physically resting our bodies like laying down. It's not a true rest of our soul. And in fact, like we're still continuing to, to be stimulated by all of, you know, the things that we're scrolling or seeing on our screen.

And correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like more often than not we walk away from those like doom scroll sessions, like still feeling overwhelmed and kind of like buzzed and kind of just like, uh, like wired almost, you know, not like, not like truly rested. And here Jesus is. Saying like, you'll find rest for your souls. And that just sounds like such a like deep, long lasting peace and like stillness in our souls. Something that like stills, our heart, mind, soul is just so attractive to me.

I don't know about you. Um, so I think that's what initially stands out to me. But I mean, let's just like, let's just break this up line by line and just kind of go through it a little bit and just do a little study. So it starts out with, come to Me All who Labor and our heavy laden, and I will give you rest. So who is Jesus inviting here? He says, come to me all who labor. Um, and really that's all of us. He's inviting all of us.

He's extending an invitation to you to go to him and to give him everything you're carrying. And just to kind of unload those burdens that you feel like you have in your life, whether they're emotional or spiritual or physical, whether it's burdens you're carrying in your own life, or you know, burdens that you feel like you're caring of people that you love and care about other people in your life. He invites us here to give that to him. And to seek rest in him, right?

To be able to let go of that burden, to entrust it to him and to trust him when he says, and I will give you rest. And I feel like, you know, going off of this conversation that I just started here about where we seek rest, I just feel like we seek rest in, in so many places and honestly the wrong places in our culture today, like social media, tv, alcohol, you know, any other vices we might have, gossip, um, whatever it is.

I just feel like our bodies naturally and our souls naturally like are yearning for that rest of soul. Um, and when we feel overwhelmed or burdened, we tend to look in the wrong places. Especially if we're not like rooting ourselves in God and in prayer constantly. It's not gonna be our first reaction to be like, oh, I'm feeling super overwhelmed. Let me go spend some time with the Lord. And honestly, I feel like that kind of ties into a level of trust that we have with.

Jesus and kind of reveals where we're at in that trust. Like if times when we just feel like life is really heavy or we have a lot going on, or you feel super overwhelmed or anxious or stressed, we're just exhausted and our reaction is to go to something worldly to find rest. It almost communicates that we don't trust that God will give us that rest, or we don't trust that we're actually gonna feel, you know, that.

Peace that rest that he can give us, but that we, we feel like we're gonna feel it in those other areas that we're seeking out. And again, it's almost kinda like seeking out this instant gratification of just like, oh, I know if I scroll on my phone for 30 minutes, you know, that's what I'll need right now to, to kind of disconnect. And I think that's key right there is like in those coping mechanisms.

What we're actually doing is disconnecting and kind of disassociating from our reality in order to give ourselves a break, whether as when we take our burdens to Jesus, we are facing our reality and surrendering it to Christ, letting go and allowing Christ to work in it and trusting that he will. And that's where that level of trust comes in and where that true surrender comes in. To be able to feel that heaviness and go first to Jesus and be like, Lord, I know that you can take it.

You know, please take it from me. Please give me your. Your rest and give me a lightness of heart. You know, please calm my anxiety. Please give me peace, confidence, joy, hope, whatever it is that you feel like you're struggling in, and to trust that he's gonna fill your cup. Um, I. And I mean, I won't lie. It doesn't mean that every time you go to prayer, you're gonna feel all these like happy feelings. All these like rainbows and butterflies in your heart, and everything's gonna feel better.

But I guarantee you the work that will be happening in your heart and soul is actually going to be healing more so than your scrolling session is gonna be. Although you might feel like you got a break from it because you disassociated and disconnected while you were scrolling. The he. There's no healing work that's happening.

Whereas when you go to the Lord and surrender your burdens to the Lord, there is healing work that happens where the Lord is, is acting as a father and is saying, I got you. You know, I'm here for your, I'm here for you. Let me provide, let me take care of it like rest my child. So that true rest really is about taking it an extra step further and surrendering our burden and trusting that Jesus is gonna take care of it.

Okay, the next line, verse 29 says, take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For the longest time, I mean, almost my whole life, basically, I didn't understand this line when it said like, take my yolk or like my yolk is light. I obviously just thought of an egg yolk and I was like, what the heck does that mean? He's got a really light egg yolk. Um, and so I never.

Understood how that like connected to this passage or rest. Um, well come to learn if you guys might already know this. Maybe it's just me, but if you're like me and you're like, what the heck is a yolk? It's like a thing that they put on oxen, I think is the way you say it. Plu elite, like on like the animal an ox. So they would put this like thing on the oxen like a. Wooden like connector, right?

To connect the oxen to like pull the like weight, like the burden or whatever it is, the load that they're carrying to kind of share the weight. So they're able to be, um, you know, working together to get this job done, to carry this load. So what Jesus is saying here basically is take my yoke upon you. Like share this yoke with me and. Attach yourself to me. He's not saying like, I'm gonna put this yoke on you to like, give you the work to help you like so that you can feel this like weight.

No. Instead, he's like, attach yourself to me and you'll see how easy the ride is. Right now you're carrying your yoke alone. And if you would just attach yourself to me, you would see how, how much lighter I would make it. And then he says, not just attach. Yourself to me, right? Not just take your, take my yoke upon you, but then learn from me. Now what does that mean? Right? What does it mean to learn from Jesus?

I mean, I just feel like it means to like walk in his ways and to emulate the way that he lived and to live the way that he calls us to, that we can learn from in the scriptures. To live in humility, to live in surrender, to live in reliance on God, to live in constant prayer, to be constantly seeking God, seeking God's will over your own. That is what it means to learn from the Lord, to walk in his ways.

And when we do that, when we walk in the way that Christ taught us to, we are able to find this rest and we'll be able to see how our, our yoke is lightened. Because the weight isn't all on us and we're not just trying to live out of this self-reliance and us figuring out life on our own and trying to grasp at everything that we think we need or that we want or yearn for.

And instead, we live an open handed life of surrender, of humility, walking in the way of the Lord, in complete trust in God, in this closeness of, of communion with God, where we are open to his will and always just. Being docile to the Holy Spirit and being ready to say yes to his call, whatever that may be. And then he says, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and this should be refreshing and comforting to us. Like to me, this brings me. Oh gosh. It just feels like a hug.

Like it just feels like a hug from like my dad. You know what I mean? Like just like a comfort and a safety where he's reassuring us, like, I am gentle in heart. Like when you give me your burden, when you like, share your burden with me and allow me to pick up your load, I'm not going to yell at you. I'm not gonna punish you. I'm not gonna be a harsh, you know, like. Master that tells you like keep going, work harder, do better. He's just gonna have mercy and love and gentleness and kindness.

Because he was fully human. He experienced the whole array of emotions and that human experience that we experience, um, without sin, of course. But he's able to empathize with us on a very personal level and so. How does knowing Jesus' heart, you know, being gentle, empathetic, merciful kind, change how we approach him? Right? How does that change our disposition of heart we go to the Lord with our burdens and know that he's just gonna receive us with kindness?

And then he says, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Does this mean that life will be effortless and will never encounter struggle? No. Right. He's not saying for, I will take away, you know? Every cross in your life. In fact, we know Jesus says, pick up your cross and follow me. But he reinforces that herewith, you know, share your cross with me. let me pick it up with you. 'cause then that burden will be light. Jesus wants to carry the weight with us.

He doesn't ask us to face anything alone. Anything. Whatever you're going through right now, whatever you're struggling with, whatever your cross is that you just feel. Is just heavy and that you are just maybe crumbling under the weight of, or anything that's weighing on you. The Lord is not asking you to do it alone, and I just want you to hear me when I say that. Don't put this pressure and expectation on yourself that the Lord is not putting on you.

He's not waiting for you to perform in some way for you to figure it out on your own, for you to prove yourself to him of how well you were able to carry this cross alone. In fact, he's waiting for you to share it with him so that he can redeem you, so that he can pour forth his love, his lightness, his mercy, his rest, his grace upon you. Because when we try to do it ourselves, we're literally rejecting Jesus.

We're literally rejecting what he came to do and what he continues to do for us every single day. So don't try and do it alone. Don't reject the love and the um, you know, the hand of Christ reaching out to save you. Allow him into your life and allow him to share the burden with you and to carry it for you. Honestly. Surrender it to him. Let him carry it for you. So how do we do this practically in our lives? Right?

You know, I'm all about the practical, so let's just talk about a few practical ways that we can surrender to Christ and allow him to carry our crosses for us. So how do we do this practically? How do we practically give him our burdens in our day-to-day life? In a very simple way. On a daily basis, I would say surrender your day to him in the morning, doing a morning offering and doing a daily surrender of the day.

We'll start you off on the right foot and allow your heart to be in a disposition to allow the Lord to be in control and not you, and to just kind of like surrender anything that comes your way and be like, Lord, you take care of it. And obviously that'll be hard to do if you don't feel like you are naturally already rooted in like a deep seed of trust for the Lord. So prayer and scripture daily is something that's going to root us in that relationship and give us.

That trust and give us those graces that we need to be able to surrender and, and rely on the Lord and give him everything that we're carrying every single day. Another practical way is honestly going to mass. And I have found this, like I said earlier in this podcast, just to be so fruitful myself, um, and to pick an intention to offer every mass for, I usually.

Pick something that I pray specifically about during the consecration of the Eucharist and during communion, and basically ask the Lord to, you know, to hear this prayer and offer up these graces and this moment in the mass where I receive Jesus and where he's coming down to meet us for a specific intention. And this is very effective. I think for us as humans, because it's a physical thing we can do, I feel like, you know, we're both body and soul.

And so the physical really is, is a way that we're able to really engage with the Lord, which I think is why the sacraments are so wonderful that the church gives us, because they all have this physical component that allows us to engage the Lord in a way that we. Connect with so much as physical human beings with physical bodies.

So going to mass, receiving him and being present and being able to offer up your burdens while receiving him in the Eucharist is such a tangible way to feel like you're trusting in the Lord and you're surrendering to him. And, um, yeah, just like giving, giving everything over to him. And another very practical, uh, habit to cultivate and thing to practice would be to keep Sundays holy and to keep Sundays a day of rest. A true Sabbath.

So many of us use Sundays as a catch up day to finish work, to do some errands, to prepare for the week. But God designed this day for worship, for rest, for renewal. And this is honestly, really hard to live out.

I mean, I struggle with this and I, I know it's so hard for so many people, again, because we live in such a, you know, busy life culture, productive culture, and, um, you know, Sundays are such, you know, an easy day to be like, that's when I'm gonna do my catchup for the week, and that's when I'm gonna, you know, do my errands and do work or whatever it is.

But that inhibits us from living out that day in the way the Lord actually calls us to, which is for worship and rest and the times that you actually lean into that, just notice how you feel. Notice how your heart, how your spirit feels, and how it feels going into the week versus the other way around.

Um, now don't get me wrong, I know that like prepping for the week is important and making sure you have groceries and maybe a. A deep clean of the house or whatever it is, but I encourage you to maybe do that on a Friday or a Saturday instead of a Sunday, and just try and practice that for a couple weeks of like taking care of those errands in that work before Sunday, and then starting the day out with mass on a Sunday and then doing, you know, something, life giving the rest of the day.

Spending time with family, having like, you know, no plan on the calendar. Just really enjoying the day with the Lord and the people that you love. Well, friends, I hope this was a fruitful conversation and I hope that you walked away just with a little message of hope and encouragement, um, that the Lord wants to walk with you in whatever you're walking through, and that the Lord wants to give you rest and not just kind of like that.

Fake rest that we're able to find when we scroll or disconnect or watch a show or just, you know, whatever it is. But actual true rest of the soul, a stillness and a peace in your heart. He wants to give you that and he's waiting for you to give him all your burdens so he can do that for you. So know that I'll be praying for you this week and praying for you as you learn to trust and surrender and rest in the Lord. Thanks for doing Bible study with me today. You guys.

I hope that you were encouraged by it. And if you feel like there's a person, a friend in your life that needs to hear this message today, go ahead and share this episode with them and just continue to spread this message of faith and hope.