Breaking The Yoke

My Pastor, Chris Vigil, was wrapping up his series this past weekend and just really hit home a point that is incredibly true. The scripture that he referred to was Genesis 27:39-40 where Abraham is replying to Esau's request for a blessing (as he gave his birthright away to his brother).

Genesis 27:39-40 (New American Standard Bible)
³⁹Then Isaac his father answered and said to him, "Behold, away from the fertility of the earth shall be your dwelling, And away from the dew of heaven from above. ⁴⁰"By your sword you shall live, And your brother you shall serve; But it shall come about when you become restless, That you will break his yoke from your neck."

I have read this scripture so many times before, but it never really hit me until this past Sunday..."But it shall come about when you become restless, that you will break his yoke from your neck." I know that a yoke has been used for centuries to manipulate animals to till the fields and keep them from straying from the path that the driver desires to go...but I had never had the revelation that this scripture holds. It's when we become restless that we begin to look around, see the other options, think outside of our little box and have the ability to change the direction that our lives are going.

You may be thinking, "Duh...that's not much of a revelation." Oh, but it is. We live our lives complaining about our jobs, our family, our marriage, our weight, our friends...and yet all the time it is within our own ability to change all of it. It's not just making a u-turn from the things that may be driving us crazy, irking us to death, but it's the attitude that we carry while dealing with the things that drive us crazy and are irking us to death.

For instance, I have been incredibly frustrated with my 5-year-old, Grace, and the fact that she has had a rotten attitude every time Momma & Daddy tell her she can't do something or need to do something. It has been driving me crazy. And I have been praying about it, mostly because I can't stand the Momma that I become when I let her get to me...that's not the Momma that I have always pictured myself as being...and it's not the family that I want to create. SO I started changing my perception of how to handle things...Like taking a deep breath, saying to myself "I will not explode" over and over again in my mind and then addressing Grace in a low calm tone (as calm as I can get).

Now, it didn't change things right away, and in fact we are still working on things, but it did bring down my level of stress that I experience every single day. And because I was sick and tired of dealing with things the way they were, I made a change. And Grace has reacted to my change a little more positively every day since I started.

I know that I cannot just change another person...that's not my job to do, it's their job to make their own adjustments to their life and personality, but I can change how I process and react to things that another person does to me. If I explode, have my stress level sent through the roof and am screaming at the top of my lungs, it's not another person's fault...it's MINE. I'm the one who reacted the way I did to whatever has been put before me. Now, another person may have done something wrong, but the way I react is solely my responsibility...not anything that I can put on them.

That's just an example of one area that we have the power to change. Some others are taking the time to bring a little more care and romance into our marriages, spend time focusing on the interests of our children and taking part in some with them (or steering them carefully away from others), taking that 30 minutes that we might spend on a TV show and turning it into pampering time (facial, polishing nails, etc.) that we used to do prior to the craziness of life....there are so many little changes that we can make to make our lives more like the life that we have always dreamed of having.

Thank you Pastor Chris! This was a revelation that I am holding close to my heart...it's Life Changing.