His Yoke Is Easy and His Burden Is Light

The Savior taught, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light" (Matthew 11:28-30).

The Load

There are at least two important principles in these verses. First, He, and ultimately only He, can make our burdens light. To break this down further, there are two ways He can do this. He can physically decrease the weight, or load, of the burden. According to Elder David A. Bednar, that may not be a wise thing for Him to do. Remember last year's conference talk about his friend who got stuck in the snow. It was the traction of the load that allowed him to get unstuck. Likewise, we can gain spiritual traction by carrying a heavy load.

There is another way the Savior can accomplish this. In the Book of Mormon when Amulon places taskmasters over Alma and his people, they are heavily afflicted and burdened. The Lord said,

"Lift up your heads and be of good comfort, for I know of the covenant which ye have made unto me; and I will covenant with my people and deliver them out of bondage.

"And I will also ease the burdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs, even while you are in bondage; and this will I do that ye may stand as witnesses for me hereafter, and that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord God, do visit my people in their afflictions" (Mosiah 24:13-14).

To make it so they could not feel the burden upon their backs, there was a second method.  The Lord could strengthen their backs so it felt lighter to them. They would still have spiritual traction, but the stronger backs could bear up the same load in such a way that it felt lighter, because they were stronger.

The Yoke


Dictionary.com defines a yoke as follows:

"A device for joining together a pair of draft animals, especially oxen, usually consisting of a crosspiece with two bow-shaped pieces, each enclosing the head of an animal."

How significant this is on a spiritual basis. The cross, described in this definition, is a symbol of Christ's atoning sacrifice. And the bow becomes a token of the covenant. Remember the rainbow. In Hebrew it's the same word. The Lord, as Jehovah, said previously, "I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth (Genesis 9:13). Just like the Book of Mormon example above, we are yoked to Him with covenants.

If we stay in the yoke with Him, we are bound together. Modern revelation states, "Ye shall bind yourselves to act in all holiness before me" (D&C 43:9). If we cannot pull the load out of sheer exhaustion, or if we veer off in the wrong direction, He will carry the load when we are too weak, or lead us back on course when we veer. If we stay yoked to Him we will end up where He is. He said,

"And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also" (John 14:3).

And thus, you will end up in the same place with Him, if you are yoked to Him.