Pride is so Exhausting

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke on you and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and my load is not hard to carry.” 

Jesus, in Matthew 11:28-30

Jesus’ famous words in Matthew 11 have beckoned to me during many a season of exhaustion. But today, as I read them in context, I see a new invitation.

There is something else that weighs me down, something that steals my joy and zaps my energy. It’s the sin of pride, and like a sneaky lion, it constantly crouches in the periphery of my life, preying on my efforts to be like Jesus.

These three oft-repeated sentences in Matthew 11 are the last of seven, in the context of a bigger story. In the previous four, Jesus is passionately praising His Father for revealing truth to the humble: little children. The people of Chorazin couldn’t see. The people of Bethsaida were blind. The people of Capernaum were so prideful that He warned their fall would span heaven and hell.

Jesus openly criticizes pride. He openly praises His Father for the child-like who will come to Him, weary and burdened by the work Pride demands. Pride is heavy and exhausting.

The context of Jesus' famous #rest words in Matthew 11 is a call to repentance from #pride. Share on X

Jesus’ dear cousin, John called The Baptist, was hurting. He was in what Christian anthropologists call Stage Four of spiritual formation, also known as The Wall, the Dark Night of the Soul, or the Night Season. His carefully constructed understanding of God had been demolished. What he knew with certainty in Stage 3, the season of much doing, was now being challenged by his inability to do as he lay immobilized in prison. John could only be within those prison walls. And as he was, he wondered why things had not turned out the way he thought they would. John was confounded by the apparent slowness of Jesus to fulfill all John had proclaimed with such confidence. John was in the process of discovering a blind spot in his life: the prideful belief that Jesus would and should act a certain way in order to fulfill our hopes.

Sometimes things don’t turn out the way we were sure they would if we obeyed.

John sent his disciples to ask Jesus, Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another? His honest question rolls like a wheelbarrow bearing John’s wounded pride before the Lord. The question is startlingly humble. This John is empty of John and what John once knew. He is looking to the Truth for truth.

Jesus responds with loyal love, upholding His messenger John, even in John’s state of doubt and imprisonment. 

Jesus preserves His purpose in our lives even when we doubt it. This is shout-with-joy-worthy news for the weary ones who have found the path of obedience leads to circumstances they don’t understand and did not expect.

Jesus defends John while simultaneously calling the people to John’s message of repentance. Next, in a stunning display of confidence in His servant, the Messiah Himself passionately preaches John’s message, concluding with a prayer of praise to His Father. 

The Savior of the world then turns His gaze from heaven to those crowding around Him and speaks powerful invitation words: Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke on you and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and my load is not hard to carry.

Jesus invites us to come to Him with our pride-burden in all its forms. The way we think others should be, the way we think we should be, the way we think Jesus Himself should be. Pride is exhausting.

Did you ever think about the fact that one day, in the new heaven and new earth, pride will cease to exist? What true rest that will be.

Lord, I come today with the pride I see in me and the pride I can’t see. Rest me and teach me how to be like You. Amen.

@audreycfrank

Photo by Keagan Henman on Unsplash