Jonathan Shradar

“Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take up my yoke and learn from me, because I am lowly and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” -- Matthew 11:28-30 (CSB) This week I had a change in schedule that took the biggest item of work off the task list. The thing that each week looms as the necessity to be accomplished and product to produce. It is my routine deadline and as the week progresses, if the task is not done I increasingly wrestle with anxiety and stress toward the goal of accomplishing it. This week, however, someone else has taken on the weight of what usually drives my schedule and because of it I can't help but think of rest. I have had more freedom, without the deadline and the pressure, to look into other things and catch up on items that usually don't get much attention. And if nothing was accomplished there was no burden, no weight to lift because the major ta

This call from Thomas Watson is so rich, we are invited into repentance and what joy it is. “Have you repented? God looks upon you as if you had not offended. He becomes a friend, a father. He will now bring forth the best robe and put it on you. God is pacified towards you and will, with the father of the prodigal, fall upon your neck and kiss you… Have you been penitentially humbled? The Lord will never scold you with your former sins. After Peter wept, we never read that Christ scolded him with his denial of him. God has cast your sins into the depth of the sea. How? Not as a cork, but as lead… The repenting sinner can go to God with boldness in prayer and look upon him not as a judge but as a Father. He is born of God and is heir to a kingdom. He is encircled with promises. He no sooner shakes the tree of the promise but some fruit falls.”