By: Theresa Kempker,OPA

During the growing season, I spend a lot of time carrying water to my garden and other plantings.  That means I spend a lot of time thinking about yokes.  A yoke, from what I’ve learned, makes the load feel as though it weighed less than when it was carried directly by the arms.  A yoke that fits onto a person’s shoulders and around their neck, in other words, a yoke made for that person, makes a muscle-straining job easy.  Our loving God, as always, thinks of each of us and gives us a yoke made to fit us.  We shouldn’t go looking for someone else’s yoke, too wide or too short, but take the one that will lighten our burden and let us learn from God. 

Another way of thinking about yokes involves the yoke for a team of oxen.  Commonly, two oxen are trained together, starting when only a few months old.  The calves at first are put into a small yoke and stand together, learning how the other acts and how to be close.  As they grow, they practice pulling small loads, now learning the way each other responds to heat, cold, flies, distractions, and annoyances.  They learn voice commands from the teamster.  After three or four years of training, they are ready to work together.  Their yoke is not flexible or padded.  When one moves, the other feels it.  They are trained to work together and only together, so much so that if one dies, sometimes the remaining ox is killed, because it can’t be trained to be paired with another. 

Is this the relationship that Jesus is inviting us to?  To be yoked with Him, so that He feels every move we make and notices everything that distracts us and annoys us as we pull our burden together?  Only a loving God would want to be so close to us.  Take His yoke upon you, and don’t be constrained, but find peace for your soul.