Stepping Out

"Come..." (Mt. 11.28)

We can look at it in different ways, and on different levels,
but there is a stark simplicity in the invitation - 
a coming from, and a coming to.

It is not the complicated things which trip us up,
it is the simple things which undo us.
The mind of man delights to try to discover the "deep" things,
the hidden meanings, the unexplained prophecies.

Our problem is not that we need more understanding; 
our first need is for more obedience in the simple rudiments.

In every person there seems to be some kind of "hangup" or other ...
areas where we cannot advance, not because of the enemy's opposition,
but because of our own inner restrictions.

Behind it all there is a fear.
There is a fear of leaving the things to which we hold, 
our ambitions, our fairy-tale concepts of what faith is, 
our holding on to our own will and way.
We fear to let go, even if those things over the length of time, have failed to lead us forward one single step in the exploration of the infinite realms of God.

In the "coming" there must be a stepping out from the realm of our doubts and fears.
There must be a believing and a commitment to the  thing which God sets before us.

Abraham "obeyed and went out, not knowing whither he went." (Heb. 11.8)
This is the way, leaving it all behind:
the good and the bad,
the positive and the negative, 
the hopes and the fears,
the future which we see in a place and a position. 

"Come unto Me" said Jesus.
This is a simple statement, a simple truth,
and yet even within the church countless multitudes have never possessed it.
We have no idea the extent to which our life is built up of concepts which hold us in iron chains.
We are able to read the verse and yet, on a deep instinctive level,
we are so harnessed to the horizons of our existence that we never really set the statement before us,
nor do we to consider what it entails, or what it promises.

"Come ... and I will give you Rest."
Like the neighbor I mentioned in the last blog,
it is possible to go to church for years,
to hear the news of the gospel and the promises of God,          
and yet ... never really come to the truths of the Kingdom of God 
and find them to be infinite Life for our souls. 

Oh, that we could "come" with all we have and all we lack.
Oh, that we could leave it at His feet,
Oh, that we could lift our eyes to the infinite, eternal rest,
from all our burdens too heavy for mortal man to bear. 

          Eternity will not be too long
               to explore the measurelessness 
                    of the meaning of God's rest.