Spiritual Solutions

Many different aspects of prayer are summed up in this sixth and final article of our series on Prayer, in these words of Jesus:

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest; take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

I’d like to recognize, too, that as we progress in our spiritual life there are often phases we don’t understand or that are particularly challenging to us.

The words that Jesus used, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest,” is our first call to prayer. We sense that there is something more, that we can find some relief from our burdens. That’s often how we first come to God; we come to God out of our need. Our purpose in praying is to be relieved of our burden, to find a sense of direction, and to be healed of that which troubles us.

When we pray we find a measure of relief, of rest and peace of mind; we experience a letting go, a sense of relaxation in God’s presence. That’s really our first introduction to the life of prayer and to the spiritual life; we may continue with it for a long, long time.

Then we begin to go deeper. We find that waiting is an important part of prayer, of waiting for a deeper sense of God’s presence; not just to alleviate us from any sense of burden or suffering, but to feel the greatness of God’s presence. We are coming to realize more of our own being, that there is more to us than we previously thought. We realize we have a great potential we haven’t even tapped, that we are indeed a child of God and an expression of God’s purpose.

So we pray for guidance, to have God reveal our purpose that we might walk in God’s way. Even then we’re not as close to God as we might be, because there is another step as we go forward. We realize our purpose is not only to express the highest of our own self, but in truth our purpose in prayer is to know God.

Our purpose in prayer is simply to know God. And when we know God, then certainly we have a sense of rest.

St. Augustine said, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.”

An inner feeling of rest comes from the realization that all we really need is God, is to know God. And when we know God, then all of our needs are automatically met. Our burdens are lifted, we are guided in right directions, the purpose of our own being and our mission on earth is fulfilled because we are in touch with the Spirit within. We are realizing the truth of our own being, and so we begin our journey centered in God.

As we move into this journey, we come then to another step, and that’s the step in which Jesus said, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls.”

In the past, when we might have heard of taking upon ourselves the “yoke” of Jesus Christ, we have felt that was itself a burden indeed; that it was not so easy and not as light as he said. Because we find that we’re not able to do the things that he taught us, we are not able to easily let go of resentments and bitterness, we are not able to forgive as readily as he would have us forgive, we’re not able to turn the other cheek or walk the extra mile. So we struggle with the idea of taking on that yoke.

But there is a deeper meaning to taking on the yoke of the Christ. It is not just doing the things that Jesus did or said were important to do. It is living the life of the Christ from within us. That is truly taking upon ourselves the yoke of the Christ.

My wife, Kathryn, and I enjoyed watching a young boy who used to live next door to us. He loved sports and would be out there in the backyard throwing the football, then in the baseball season he’s on a little mound he made for himself and he’s doing all the actions. Then he would be out there with the bat, or he would be playing with a basketball. He just loved all the sports. But was funny to watch him because we could see he was trying to imitate his heroes in that particular sport. When it’s baseball season he’s spitting on his hands and rubbing them and scratching himself, or he’ll spit and hold his bat up. He does all the different things his star or idol does.

So often we, too, try to follow and imitate the way of someone else. Even in seeking to follow Jesus words “Follow me,” we seek to do those outer things.

But Jesus is bringing us to a new level of understanding, saying “This is not enough, just to do the outer things. If you want to follow me you must take on the whole life, you must take on the yoke; you must join yourself to the Christ within you and live out of that Christ presence. To learn from me, you must learn from within.”

We tend not to want to learn from within, we prefer to do those outer things because that keeps us busy and keep us thinking we’re doing well, we’re doing good things, and we’re living a “Christian” life because we’re doing these outer things. But inside of us there may be torment, there may be a sense of hopelessness or purposelessness, or even of veiled terror, because we’re not able to stop and face ourselves.

So, a really important point that Jesus is trying to get across to us is that if we are to take on the yoke of the Christ, which is light and is easy, we are to live from within the Christ and turn to that presence to learn, to be guided in the steps we are to take. Learning is sometimes dangerous for us. We think we know ourselves and who we are. Then suddenly something comes along and says, “This needs changing.”

So when we get guidance from within to learn from the Christ, our first impulse is to resist. The real fear within us is a deep seated fear of dying to self, of not having control over our lives if we surrender ourselves to the presence within. It’s threatening to us, because we like to be in charge, we like to be in control.

It would be different if God were to say aloud, “Go and do this, or go and do that.” We don’t get that definite direction very often; it’s more an indication within ourselves of things we must do, insights we have that are very subtle and which we successfully ignore. Or after our prayer time we put them aside and we forget or repress them. And we go about our business doing the same old things the same way we have always done them without really learning from the Christ within.

In our experience of prayer, as we really seek to follow our inner guidance there will be times that we are challenged. There will be things that threaten us to the very core of our being and that we will turn away from.

In our prayer times we may go through periods of dryness; it feels like a desert. Sometimes we find the peace of God within us, but at other times there is dryness. And usually that is because we are avoiding something. We are not able to find God’s presence because we’re not willing to listen to God’s presence. So we experience a time of dryness or aridity in our lives.

On those occasions we need to continue to trust God, to trust that God’s presence is there even in the dryness and it will be revealed to us what we need to know. So instead of resisting those times and saying “It’s no good me praying, I can’t pray or I don’t have time for prayer,” simply take time and sit there. Go through the difficulty of waiting in God’s presence and let it be revealed to you what you need to know.

As well as desert experiences we also have times when we feel the sense of bliss, peace, and love that God brings into our lives. These can be tempting times also, because instead of moving into prayer with the purpose of knowing God we go into prayer to experience the feelings peace, love, and joy.

Actually what we are doing is trying to get back in control of things. It’s that same old thing within ourselves, and again God is saying to us, “Let go, let go. All of that love and peace and joy will always be there, but you don’t have to hold on to it. You can move through the experiences you need to move through, you can accept the insights you need to accept, you can make the changes you need to make even though they are threatening to you, and the love, peace, and joy will be there again. But let go, let go.”

It’s a very subtle temptation, isn’t it, for us to move into prayer because we’ve had a wonderful experience and we want that same experience again. We’re not willing to let it go and let the experience be what it will be.

Then another thing that often sidetracks us is that as we move into the spiritual life we begin to experience what is called “phenomena.” We might have a vision of some sort, or we may hear a voice saying something to us regarding a sense of direction. Or we might have other kinds of phenomena, we may see an aura or we may have an experience of clairvoyance where we know what a future experience is going to be or what another person is thinking. We might think then that we’re really moving along in the spiritual life now; we’re getting somewhere because we’re having these experiences.

Then we get sidetracked into letting the phenomena be the thing that we’re looking for in prayer instead of knowing God. Phenomena will come and phenomena will go as we move on in our spiritual life. If we seek the phenomena, then we tend to become “holier than thou” or so “spiritual” that we’re no earthly good. So again, with the phenomena, we just have to let it go. Initially it comes to guide us, but we are not to cling to the phenomena; we let it go. Our guidance comes in many ways, so we need to just let it go.

When Jesus says, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,” he’s talking about the Christ within. Then, “. . . for I am lowly and gentle in heart” means we cannot be coming to prayer in a controlling way, we have to come in a gentle way, in an open way. We have to come like a child, and simply be open to whatever insight comes to us and make those changes that need to be made.

There s a wonderful quote I found, by Evelyn Underhill. She said, “We are the unstable striving agents of a quiet, fathomless love.” That means there’s a continuous pressure within us to bring us into a deeper integrity within ourselves.

Sometimes we move into what has been called the “dark night of the soul” experience, and usually that’s when we’ve been in the practice of the spiritual life for quite a while. What happens, then, is like a crisis of the soul. But again it is the fear of death, fear of the death of the self, of really giving ourselves totally to the Spirit.

If you are ever going through a dark night experience, one of the best things for that is to do some physical exercise, something that really makes you sweat, because it gets you out of that state of being caught up in the dark night and feeling sorry for yourself. Another thing that helps is to work in the soil, to get connected with the earth. It helps bring you through to a deeper realization of God’s presence, and to know that all that is required of us is that “Thy will be done” by me.

It is a recognition that God’s will is done in and through and by us, not by something out there somewhere or some vague mystical thing, but we have to be the vehicles of God’s will for good in life. Sometimes that means going in a direction that we would prefer not to go because it demands so much of us. So the important thing is that we make the commitment in the life of prayer. We make a commitment to go all the way with God.

Then indeed we find that “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” We find the truth of those words within us, that God’s love enfolds us like a cloak that wraps around us and carries us through whatever we may be facing. And all of the joy, and the peace, and the love are always there.

I’ll close with a quote from Julian of Norwich, in “Revelations of Divine Love,” which speaks to the nature of God’s love:

“I saw that He is to us everything that is good and strengthening for our help. He is our clothing that for love wraps us up and winds us about, embraces us; all encloses us, and hangs about us for tender love so that He can never leave us.”

That’s the all-encompassing God’s love which is always there.

God is blessing you right now!

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham
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Rev. Alan Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over thirty-six years, invites you to enjoy more articles and/or subscribe to his free inspirational newsletter, “Spiritual Solutions,” at www.spiritualsolutionsblog.com

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