Everyone.Everywhere.Praying Everyday.

What are you carrying that Jesus never asked you to carry? Some burdens announce themselves loudly. Others become so familiar that we stop noticing them: the need to keep proving yourself, the pressure to be strong for everyone, the fear that if you slow down something will fall apart. You wake up, pick the weight back up, and call it responsibility. Jesus first spoke these words to people who knew religious exhaustion. Their teachers had made life with God feel heavier than it was meant to be, with rules upon rules and little mercy for tired souls. Then Jesus stood before them and gave an invitation almost too kind to believe: Come to me. He opened with welcome rather than correction, before he had said anything else. Many of us still assume God is mostly interested in how well we are carrying the load. But Jesus is interested in the person underneath it. He sees the tiredness we hide, the striving we spiritualise, and the fears we have learned to live with. The rest Jesus gives runs deeper than a day off. It is the relief of no longer having to earn what grace has already given, the rest of being received before you are impressive and held before you can hold everything together. So begin this month here. Bring him the burden, the pressure, the part of you that is tired of pretending you are not tired. His invitation is still open this morning: Come to me.