Ye Shall Find Rest

I liked the story that Brother David J. Wunderli, first counselor in the Young Men General Presidency, told in the most recent general conference. He told how his six-year-old son received a picture of the Savior that he cherished and kept with him. He related, “One Saturday morning we decided to take a family hike up a nearby canyon. Our six-year-old son carefully placed his picture of Jesus Christ into his backpack. That was it —he packed nothing else. When we stopped for lunch along the trail, he got busy finding small, unique rocks, and soon he had a large pile of them.” His son filled his backpack with rocks and then had a really hard time carrying them. He started to take some of them out, and his dad made the suggestion to take out the picture of Jesus. “That should lighten your load,” he said. Brother Wunderli continued, “I will never forget the hurt look on his face. It seemed to say, ‘Dad, you really want me to take Jesus out of my pack and leave Him behind?’ And then his look changed to ‘Dad, you’re not as smart as I thought you were.’” Of course the backpack would not be easier to carry without the picture of Jesus, and in the same manner when our life is hard and heavy, removing Jesus from it is not the answer either. Brother Wunderli summarized the message this way: “The enemy of happiness wants to separate you from Jesus Christ. He will tempt you to remove the Savior from your life, enticing you to think that the road would be easier without Him, that the weight of His commandments is too great, that the path back is too long, that repentance is too hard. Know this: Satan is a liar. Jesus Christ is not the weight; He is the relief.”

It seems that the Savior wanted us to understand this message in His well-known invitation, “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” (Matthew 11:28-30). This morning I was chatting with a friend who mentioned all the Saturday stuff he had to do. He jokingly said he’d have a lot more time if he could skip church on Sunday and thought maybe I could give him permission to do that. He was of course being facetious, but that is how many would reason: less time doing church things would give me more time to do everything and give me more rest and relaxation. That may be true to some degree, but if we want the kind of rest that Christ spoke of in these verses we won’t find it by removing the things that connect us with Him. His rest only comes as we do more of what brings us close to Him, not doing just what makes life easy for us. Brother Wunderli gave us suggestions about how we can keep Jesus with us: “You keep Him with you as you reverently, with real intent, kneel and pray to the Father in the name of Jesus Christ. You keep Him with you as you study the scriptures daily, especially the Book of Mormon, and reflect on the witness of Jesus Christ that it bears. As you do, He will guide you through your mists of darkness. You keep Jesus Christ with you as you exercise faith in Him, trust Him, and turn to Him in sincere, daily repentance. You keep Jesus Christ with you as you are willing to live your covenants every day and renew them every week.” Rather than boxes to check, all of these are the things that can give us spiritual rest in Him.  

I love the song Rest by Leann Crawford, and the lyrics includes these words:

 

I need a little rest 'cause I'm

Feeling like a mess, and I

I wanna catch my breath even for a moment

'Cause I'm running out of peace, and I'm

Hearing sirens scream, saying

"Watch your step, don't forget

God is where you're gonna find rest"

 

God is indeed where we will find ultimate rest, the kind of rest that Jesus spoke of when He invited us to come unto Him. In our trials we don’t need to take Jesus out—we need more of Him and His gospel.