The phrase I've said most in life is this one: "Lord, You've got me." And I've meant it. And it works -- works gloriously. His yoke is easy and His burden is light. Why? Because He puts nothing on you? On the contrary, you come to Him and He will dump the world and its troubles into your heart. You begin to care. I came to Him all unsuspecting. I wanted salvation and found in taking it I wanted the salvation of the world. At eighty-three I'm taking more and more projects upon myself -- world projects. And the more I take on myself, the more I'm taken over by joy, by well-being, by inner excitement, by adventure, by growth, by life.
His yoke is easy because His yoke is my yearning. It gives me the very thing I'm made for -- creative activity. When I surrender to Him, it is the same surrender a wire, unattached and noncreative, makes when it surrenders to a dynamo: it throbs with light and power. The same surrender which paint makes when it surrenders to an artist: mere color becomes a living picture. The same surrender which ink makes when it surrenders to a writer: mere print becomes words that burn and bless and enlighten. When you surrender to Christ, you surrender to the most creative and dynamic Person on this or any other planet. You begin to be alive with His life, enlightened with His light, loving with His love. You have surrendered to creativity. Therefore His yoke is easy, for you are made by the Creator for creation.
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Eli Stanley Jones was a 20th century Methodist Christian missionary and theologian. He is remembered chiefly for his interreligious lectures to the educated classes in India, thousands of which were held across the Indian subcontinent during the first decades of the 20th century.
Jones was born in Baltimore, Maryland. After attending Asbury University, he became a missionary in the Methodist Episcopal Church. He traveled to India and began working with the lowest castes, including Dalits. He became close friends with many leaders in the Indian Independence movement, and became known for his interfaith work. He said, "“Peace is a by-product of conditions out of which peace naturally comes. If reconciliation is God’s chief business, it is ours—between man and God, between man and himself, and between man and man.” He was nominated for Nobel Peace Prize for his reconciliation work in Asia, Africa, and between Japan and the United States.