Find Rest Unto Your Soul

"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." Matthew 11:28-30

I always thought meek meant teachable, so why would it be connected to rest? In the original Greek, "praus" means to restrain your strength for a greater good. How interesting that it is used with the idea of oxen being yoked together.

Elder Boyd K Packer illustrated the importance of teamwork in bulls in his 1975 address "Equally Yoked Together." In his story, he was watching a sledge-pulling competition where much smaller oxen overtook larger, stronger oxen because the smaller team knew how and when to use their strength. They pulled at the right moment, maximizing the effect of their strength.

When we take Christ's yoke upon us, we are choosing to share the burden with Him, look forward to the will of our Father, and use our strength properly instead of throwing our weight and energy at things that don't matter and ultimately set us back.

Christ gave the perfect example of this when He was being falsely accused prior to His crucifixion. Put yourself in His place for just a moment. Imagine standing in a mob of people who you are trying to save, who are lying about you in an attempt to get you killed. Imagine you have the power to strike them all down; it would be easy. This may have been one of Christ's greatest temptations. But He "held his peace." How can one hold on to peace in a moment like that?! Meekness. He had aligned His will with His Father's and knew that the greater work was to fulfill His mission, not to prove that He was right.

His purpose brought Him a greater strength. Any ox can pull a load. Only the best ox can control their strength to pull the heaviest load. So how do we yoke ourselves to Him to pull the burden of mortality? Covenants yoke us to Him, but how we choose to spend our time is how we pull. Is there a purpose in how you spend your time?

Are you actually filling your cup when you scroll on social media, or are you wasting time? There is a difference between not using a cell phone and charging it. There are positive ways to spend our time recharging our souls, and there is dissociating.

Being busy is soul-crushing if the things you spend your time on don't serve a purpose. If you claim that you are too busy to spend time reading your scriptures or spending time in the temple, what things are taking up your time, and are they worth it?

These may be hard questions to ask ourselves, and changing our habits will take time. But it is so worth the effort because it will bring us closer to God. If we want to spend eternity with Him, shouldn't we start spending time with Him now?