Friends: I’ve developed a fond attachment to the month of November over these later years of my life. It’s when Jesus arrived. Blessings!  Bob

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Spirituality Column #940

November 19, 2024

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Sentimental Journey

By Bob Walters

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle 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

It is November, a gloomy weather time of year here in the American Midwest, punctuated by Thanksgiving as we circle in a fitful holding pattern for Christmas.

Fall has mostly fallen, clouds hang heavy, the school year grinds on, it’s “off season” for just about everything except sports, and maybe, just maybe, in our weariness we hang on until hope blooms afresh in the new year, scant weeks away.

In my life up until 2001, when I was 47, that was my attitude toward November. Although in truth, I probably never gave November much thought. But I was baptized into Christ November 18, 2001, and ever since, November has accumulated a special, treasured, and personal fill-up of purpose and sentimentality.  I have a new birthday.

There is a sharp delineation in my life before baptism, and my life since.  As I mentioned in my longer than usual epigram last week, November 2007 was when my dearest Christian friend Russ Blowers, a retired pastor who mentored my first six years as a Christian, died at age 83,

It was at Russ’s funeral, November 15, 2007, that I met my new, dearest Christian friend, my wife Pam. Just a few days after Russ’s funeral, on the 19^th, we went out for coffee. We’ve been together ever since, and married in the summer of 2009.

Which is all to say that I, now and for some time, have harbored a profoundly sentimental attachment to November.  It was the month when I learned about resting from burdens, trusting the gentle, liberating, and loving yoke of Jesus, and about trusting a humble heart. I learned the sweet grief of watching a saint go to heaven, and grasped the deepest thanks for God revealing His truth to sinful man in the loving life and sacrifice of Jesus.  Pam and I, and so many others, share this blessing.

We don’t have to live up to the demands of Jesus; we get to live with his promises and love.  The “rest” Jesus promises is both a rest from the law which brings death and countless demands, and the rest we have in the new covenant of faith, salvation, and life of the new Lord of the Sabbath, Jesus Christ. 

We have to remember that Jesus promises persecution and pain, a seeming logical disconnect. But it is the demons of this world who tempt us with the burdens of this world, which come gift-wrapped as candy but are poison to the soul. We choose the love of the world or the love of Jesus, and that is a choice that will delineate one’s life.

My life, for example.

I now know life with Jesus, but once lived life far from Him. Then He invited me in, and weariness faded. November is now special.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) was born May 23, 1954, reborn Nov. 18, 2001, and writes a thank you letter on that date each year to Dave Faust, who baptized him.