This Sunday brought a weird confluence of thoughts and truths. 

Context: For those that don’t know, I’m adopting a daughter from India. And just now, I am waiting for a match. India releases children to be eligible for adoption every Monday. That means every Monday is the start of a weeklong emotional rollercoaster. Will it be today? My adoption coordinator said it might take a few days to coordinate up-to-date information with the orphanage. It’s Friday – now or never. Not this week. The weekend. It starts again. This process could take from 0-8 months.

Cue Sunday Morning

Sunday started with a text from my mother: ”Sunday School this morning: ‘Be a bungee jumper.’ The lesson was trusting the providence and direction of God.”

Then a visiting pastor preached on 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.

These two ideas seem a little paradoxical. Be a bungee jumper at rest. And I’ve been meditating on the paradox all week. 

I love Matthew 11:28. Who doesn’t love Christ’s call to come to Him and find rest? Rest sounds great! But, because I am a dirty, rotten, sinner, I have some objections that occasionally surface: 

1. Many days I’m not sure that I want to come. I know the end of the passage: “Take my yoke upon you,” and I don’t really enjoy being told what to do. 
2. Taking God’s yoke means that the wiser ox (God) works in tandem with the young, stupid ox (me) to teach the younger ox the right way to go. My brain wants to believe that it can figure it out on its own; no help required. And (see number one) I don’t really enjoy being told what to do. 

Clearly, these are untenable positions. I absolutely need someone to lead me in paths of righteousness; I need someone who will tell me “this is the way, walk in it.” I think, I hope, I pray that I am quicker now to abandon these totally foolish ways of thinking and take up God’s yoke and learn of Him, but it’s a daily struggle. And there is another objection. Taking up God’s yoke and plowing straight furrows again, and again, and again doesn’t sound like any fun. It sounds hard. It sounds boring. 

Anyone who has walked with God for any length of time will tell you with conviction that life with God is never boring. I need you to watch sheep for forty years: now go and tell off Pharoah and watch God part the Red Sea. Watch sheep for your dad; now go and fight a giant. Wander in the wilderness for forty years; watch Jericho fall. God’s perfect plan for his children is a heady mixture of plodding and adventure. Biblically speaking, God calls us to faithfulness in daily obedience and to leaps of knowledge-based faith. 

We have to learn to plod. It’s the work of humility and meekness to take up the cross daily and love my rotten neighbors, to be thankful in circumstances I don’t like, to do everything (even the things I am convinced I can do alone) with prayer and supplication, to pray that God’s will be done instead of my own, to hold loosely my own plans knowing that God is the one who will direct my steps (whether I want Him to or not). This is “take my yoke upon you and learn of me” faith. It is hard. It demands consistent sober vigilance, taking every thought into captivity, daily taking up the cross. This plodding does not produce the instant “out” of brain-numbing entertainment or a quick thrill, but it produces with time a long-lasting, well-nurtured, knowledge-based rest born out of a growing understanding of and relationship with God.

We have to learn to jump. To trust God when he says take five stones and fight that giant, march around that wall, take torches, pitchers, and trumpets to battle, sacrifice your son, go back to Jerusalem even though they hate you. This is bungee jumping faith. Bungee jumping faith is awesome; you come through and stand looking back on the Red Sea just crossed, the walls of Jericho toppled, the giant facedown in the dust and praise God for his mighty deeds. You remember these moments to your children so that you can teach them the greatness of God. 

You can bungee jump and plod at the same time, spiritually speaking. Deciding to move forward with adoption has been bungee jumping – the really scary kind where you have no control, the ground is coming up so quickly, and you find yourself screaming (metaphorically, mostly) “God, I hope you’ve got this.” And it’s been plodding. This process started two years ago! There has been reams of paperwork, waiting for the two bedroom apartment to be ready for move-in, lag time as documents were approved, fundraising, praying, planning, hoping . . . 

And in all of this, in plodding and bungee jumping, I am to find rest. To paraphrase Paul, I am to learn “in whatever state I am in – plodding, bungee jumping, walking through the valley of the shadow of death – to be content.“ I am to know my Saviour so well that whether I am in a season that feels interminable because it is heavy, hard, or boring or whether I am in a season that makes me hold onto my hat and pray for a safety restraint, I can rest. He is my Good Shepherd who will supply my needs. He is my closer-than a brother friend, my Creator who remembers my frame that I am just dust, my strong tower where I can run and hide. He is the God who holds me in His hand and nothing can pluck me out. He is the God who delights to rescue me. And as I learn to rest in this knowledge the plodding becomes more like a walk with a friend and the bungee jumping – well, that’s still bungee jumping, there’s just a lot more joy in the jump!

As always, thanks for listening!