The Bible is full of illustrations to help us understand our relationship with Jesus. Obviously, none is singularly sufficient or there would not be so many. Each, however, reveals a portion of truth that when combined with others moves us closer to understanding our relationship with Him.
In this book I use the illustration of an ox cart to help you examine your relationship with Jesus, with others, and with yourself. I explore your oneness and separateness in Him along with what it means to wear His yoke. I also describe the often stark contrast between who others may say you are with whom God declares you to be. I also identify many difficulties you may encounter in your life, and God’s provision for overcoming them.
Since part of God’s provision is His Son’s body, the Church, I will compare a healthy congregation to a Club of christ (lowercase “c” intended). I will also offer insight into strategies for helping others in a way that does not compromise your own physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being. Most of these insights come from Scripture, while others are based in biblical counseling.
This book describes a wide range of personal experiences that for some will be unpleasant to read, and for others, painful to remember. It may even be that for you, your own circumstances and experiences are even worse. My purpose is not to open old wounds unnecessarily, but rather, to shed light on any existing wounds that continue to cause you difficulty by influencing your current thoughts, decisions, and actions. Hopefully, this light will bring clarity, though unfortunately, clarity often comes with its own pain and difficulty.
While you can benefit greatly from reading this book on your own, I encourage you to read it with at least one other Christian so that together, you can pray and work through the questions in each chapter. It is often in the eyes of a trusted brother or sister that God’s truth, and the truth of our past experiences are reflected more accurately than what we can perceive on our own. That said, no brother or sister is perfect, and anything you receive into your thinking must first be in alignment with Scripture, and also be consistent with your discernment from the Holy Spirit.
If reading this book triggers strong and overwhelming emotions from your past or current circumstances, please take a break from reading, put yourself first, and talk with a qualified counselor, pastor, family member, or a supportive friend. This may be your time to courageously reach out for help.
I caution you against three common reactions while reading this book. The first is a tendency to minimize your past and current difficulties by comparing them to someone else who “has it worse.” Your difficulties do not become less important or less painful just because someone else “has it worse.” If Jesus thought this, He would only have died for the “worst” sinner in the world.
The second caution is that the beginning chapters identify difficulties originating early in life from parents or caregivers, which includes grandparents, relatives, adoptive parents, stepparents, step-grandparents, step-relatives, childcare workers, teachers, coaches, and anyone else who has a direct influence on a person’s development during his or her formative years. Often, our love for these people can cause us to minimize and rationalize their painful actions. You might do this by thinking, “They did the best they could,” or “They didn’t mean to cause me harm.” I understand your desire to protect their image in your mind, and perhaps even their own image in their own mind, but think about a situation in which a six-year-old child in a parked car with the engine running, accidentally bumps the gear shift into reverse. He then tries his best to steer the moving car as it knocks you down and rolls over your leg that is now broken. Hearing from bystanders that “He tried his best,” or “He didn’t mean to hurt you,” does not make your leg any less broken or less painful. You are still left with the reality of restoring your leg so you will not walk with a limp, or run from all cars that appear to be carrying a six-year-old child.
The third caution is to not waste your precious time and energy bitterly judging your parents or caregivers, or anyone else who has harmed you, because to do so not only lengthens and deepens your wounds, it also robs you of yet another day of your life. While anger and judging others can produce feelings of superiority, power, and control, which are more personally tolerable than those of vulnerability, sadness, and fear, they are not a comfortable yoke and do not provide rest for your soul.
As for parents and caregivers in general, the majority do not wake up each morning asking themselves, “How can I mess this kid up even more today?” It is more likely that they cannot give what they never received and do not have. If that is your experience, it is now up to you to find healing and renewal so you can reclaim God’s intended life for you and those you love.
While we are commanded not to judge others, when we have a difficult experience with someone, there is nothing wrong with making a clear assessment of what happened, and wisely taking steps to prevent it from happening again. For example, after your leg was healed from the six-year-old’s best effort at steering a car, if you once again find yourself walking behind a parked car with its engine running, it would be prudent to be alert whether it contained a six-year-old child or not. On the other hand, if after your leg is physically healed you refuse to walk near any parked car, engine running or not, and hate or fear all children, you still have some mental and emotional wounds that need healing before you can once again walk in freedom with wisdom.
Life can be difficult because life is difficult. When the Apostle Paul asks, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?” (Romans 8:35 ), he is referring to some serious difficulties. He answers his question beginning with verse 37,
If as Paul writes, we are “more than conquerors,” then evidently we are in a war, and that war started long before any of us were born, and will continue until Jesus returns. In the meantime, the best we can hope for is to enter into a oneness relationship with Jesus and His body of believers; grow in our knowledge, understanding, and wisdom; and live an abundant life in the midst of our difficulties through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Any understanding you or I can have about God is by definition incomplete because He said, “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:9). With this in mind, I fully accept and even proclaim that the ox cart is yet another singularly insufficient illustration of our relationship with Jesus, and I do not offer it as a lost book of the Bible. As such, please do not push this cart beyond where I leave it.
The overall message of this book is that we are born into a difficult world of deceiving lies, and can be redeemed into Jesus’ body of renewing love. You have a choice. Everyone wears a yoke, and your choice of whose you wear will determine to what extent you live your life abundantly. If you take the yoke of Jesus and learn from Him, God will use your painful and difficult experiences along with His healing grace to renew and conform you to the image of His Son.
I hope this ox cart illustration and the Chapters on helping others will be used by the Holy Spirit to deepen your understanding of God’s truth, and bring about in you a greater oneness with Jesus, with others, and within yourself; it has for me.