Tag Archives: take my yoke upon you

Christian Life, Pursuing Love

Follow the ancient paths

Leave a comment



I was driving along a country road the other day when I saw a buzzard perched in a tree top. It was the classic image of the bird on a dead branch high in a treetop surveying its surroundings. I decided to turn the car around and drive towards it again to take a photograph, if there was somewhere suitable where I could pull the car in. Two minutes later I was approaching the tree again and the bird was still there; what’s more there was a little place at the side of the road where I could park the car close enough for a decent shot. So far so good. And then came the stupid moment: instead of just pointing my camera through the windscreen, I decided to open the door and step outside. It won’t notice me, I thought.

Wrong! As soon as the door moved, the bird opened its beautiful huge wings and flapped slowly away. And away with it glided my classic close-up (with my zoom lens) photo of the buzzard on the high dead branch.

But I felt God spoke to me as I dove away in disappointment and anger at my stupidity, and spent much of the morning reflecting on the lesson I felt that the Lord was teaching me. It was this: when I looked at the buzzard I only saw the photograph I want to take and the actions that I could carry out in order to take that photo. I did not look at the buzzard and see what it was and what it was doing. The buzzard wasn’t a photo for my collection , it was a wild bird with far keener eyes than my own, perched on a vantage point where it had sight of all that moved within its range of vision. That included me and my car door. I gave no thought to the impact that I would have on the buzzard; only the impact the buzzard would have on my collection of photos.


We cannot love others unless we consider the impact that we have on them, and we can only do this when we understand who they are, what they are doing and why they are doing it; what is going on in the world that they were in before we turned up. We achieve this is by approaching gently, with consideration and understanding. If I am approaching a bush where a warbler is singing I will approach as gently as I can because I don’t want to scare it away: why do I barge into the “bushes” where other people are and expect them to welcome my disturbance of their world? “Let your gentleness be known to all,” wrote Paul (Philippians 4:5). Jesus told us to learn gentleness from Him when we take His yoke (Matt 11:29). Gentleness is an essential characteristic of love and part of the fruit of the Spirit. If I had included gentleness in my approach to that buzzard I would have taken a picture through the car windscreen instead of scaring it off by opening the door. Instead, without love, I ended up with nothing (1 . Cor 13…)

Jeremiah 6:16 says: “This is what the LORD says: “Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.”

Jesus Himself is the ancient path: He is the Way, the “good way.” And when He speaks to us about taking His yoke and following Him, He quotes the very words that the Holy Spirit speaks through Jeremiah: “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matt 11: 29-30)

Every moment in any relationship is a crossroads. We have a choice. We either charge across in the direction that we have in our minds, open the car door and scare away the bird; or we can stand, which means we have first have to stop. And having stopped, we look, which means we consider the other person, who they are and the circumstances they are in. And having looked, we seek Jesus, the good way, and look for those ancient paths of His that He wants us to walk in. If we don’t have an immediate revelation, we can’t go far wrong with following the guidance of 2 Tim 2:22, which is to “pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace.”  If we do that, not only will we proceed with gentleness and find rest for our own souls, but we will bring Jesus into the other person’s situation and we might help their soul to find rest as well.

Don’t rush to open the car door… (this one was much further away, and is much enlarged.)

(Note for readers in the USA: the bird in this story is a european common buzzard; not a turkey vulture, which is often called a buzzard in the USA).

Holiness: You shall be perfect, Living by Faith, Walking in the Spirit

The Ride up the Mountain

Leave a comment

The Lord has taken his people off the road and He is leading us up a mountain track on mountain bikes. He says: “This is a new way that you haven’t been along before. You’re no longer in your vehicles, driving along the road that you are used to. This is my way. I am your guide and only I can lead you. I am drawing you closer to me as you move up the mountain track. You feel exposed and vulnerable on your bikes, because I am calling you in these days to be close to me and to rely on me. You do not have a vehicle to rely on, you cannot just follow the voices and the direction of others, because I am teaching you to rely on hearing my voice and seeing my direction for yourself. And I am saying to you keep moving, keep turning the pedals, because as you do your bicycle will stay upright, even though you can’t see round the next bend in the track. There will be times when your paths cross the paths of others who are also on their bikes on their own paths up the Mountain. You will stop and share refreshments with them, you will encourage each other and share stories about your journey, then you will go your separate ways and move on, always with me and always up the mountain.

There will be times when you will come to settlements hidden in little folds of the mountain, little groups of lights clustered together. You will get off your bike in these places and rest a while, and while you are resting I will overhaul your bike, oiling the chain, pumping up the tyres, tightening nuts and replacing broken spokes, and then you will get on again to continue your journey, always with me and always up the mountain. You are not in a vehicle loaded with equipment to carry out work, because you’re not working; you’re concentrating on riding your bike with me. For it is I the Lord who do the work in you and through you. And you will not always even see what I am doing. You will say “Nothing is happening! I am just on my bike all alone on this mountain!” But do not fear and do not be discouraged, because I am always with you and I am always working. You just have to keep moving forward towards the top, enjoying my presence and the beauty of my creation.

All the time you keep moving, you are being strengthened for what lies ahead and purified by the mountain air. And as you move towards the top, you will also be drawing closer to each other as your paths converge. Then the time will come when you reach the summit and you find yourselves all gathered together in one place. For this is My Mountain, My Holy Mountain. And your purpose in climbing it until you are all gathered together at the summit is to receive me and welcome me when I return for you, my bride, prepared and purified through your journey, spotless and without blemish.

And I will be returning for you just in the same way as I left this earth, at the top of the mountain.

Living by Faith, Walking in the Spirit

My Yoke is Easy: the Stairs and the Escalator

2 Comments

I had a picture of a staircase with someone with a very heavy backpack on that was really burdening them and weighing them down. Each step was getting harder and harder to climb. They had nearly reach the top, when they had to go back to the bottom. They were then complaining, saying “Why Lord have  I  got to do it again? You know how hard it’s been for me, how long it’s taken me and how much I’m aching in pain carrying this load up the stairs.”

God gently answered, “I know”.  He pointed to a button at the bottom of the stairs and said, “My child you have carried this burden under your own steam and on your own, now press that button and watch what happens.” The person pressed the button and the stairs weren’t actually stairs, they were an escalator. The Lord then said: “In my power  you can take of the back pack and place it on the escalator beside you, and ascend with ease in my power. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Jacob Dominy

Jake sent me this picture this morning, but he hadn’t been shown who it was for. I actually thank there are three levels to this. On one level, it is a specific word for certain individuals, – whether you’re at Wildwood church or anywhere else in the world! – and God is speaking to you about a specific situation that at the moment looms large in your life. Receive the word, put down that backpack gratefully, press that button in prayer and feel the escalator start moving. You won’t realise it is happening until you notice that something that you were facing has started to slip behind you, because God has dealt with it. That’s your sign.

Also I think the Holy Spirit has just shown me a detail for someone (a particular person, not everyone) who is reading this, about the backpack: inside it are three fairly large wooden blocks, like the old-fashioned wooden building bricks that were made for small children maybe 40 or 50 years ago. You are hoping to start building something, and you’ve been carrying them for a long time. The Lord says to you “Don’t just put the pack down, but give me the contents as well and let me do the building.” But as I said, this is a word of knowledge for an individual: otherwise the general picture of the heavy weight applies.

The second level, I think, is a much more general teaching point. I am sure most of us find ourselves walking up that escalator at different times. In fact I’ve just had a phone call since writing that last sentence which this picture speaks into. We face situations every day and often think that we’re just walking up stairs, often steep ones, often carrying a heavy load as well. We just say to ourselves, “That’s life!” But it isn’t: the reality is the escalator, not the stairs. The reality is the spiritual dimension. The reality is the power that raised Jesus from the dead who dwells within us. In Him we live and move and have our being. And the button of transformation isn’t miles away at the top or at the bottom of the stairs; it’s right where we are, on our hearts. How often do we forget to press it, and pray?

The final point comes from a devotional I read yesterday on Jacob’s Ladder. Just as the angels ascended and descended Jacob’s ladder, the Lord want us to go up and down the ladder ourselves. We go up the escalator to receive from Heaven, and we come back down to bring to Earth what we have received, so that God’s will is done on Earth as it is in Heaven. If we can take our simple, childish wooden building blocks into heavenly places and leave them there with the Lord, He will transform them into Heaven’s resources to bring back down to Earth.

I’m going to finish by repeating Jake’s picture, as I don’t want what I have written to detract from the original word:

I had a picture of a staircase with someone with a very heavy backpack on that was really burdening them and weighing them down. Each step was getting harder and harder to climb. They had nearly reach the top, when they had to go back to the bottom. They were then complaining, saying “Why Lord have  I  got to do it again? You know how hard it’s been for me, how long it’s taken me and how much I’m aching in pain carrying this load up the stairs.”

God gently answered, “I know”.  He pointed to a button at the bottom of the stairs and said, “My child you have carried this burden under your own steam and on your own, now press that button and watch what happens.” The person pressed the button and the stairs weren’t actually stairs, they were an escalator. The Lord then said: “In my power  you can take of the back pack and place it on the escalator beside you, and ascend with ease in my power. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”