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Coming and Going

Sally Clarkson

Texas Home School Coalition Association REVIEW © February 2000

It was impossible to be involved with Campus Crusade for Christ when I was in college in the early 1970s and not know the Great Commission of Matthew 28:19-20. It is permanently engraved in my memory: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations…”

That verse is why I shared my faith and discipled fellow students. It is why I joined the staff of Campus Crusade in 1975 and lived in Eastern Europe for three years. It is why my husband Clay joined staff in 1975 and later went to seminary. It is why we ministered in Austria for three years as a newly married couple.

Even when Clay and I settled down and started our family, we could not escape the inevitable conclusion that our responsibility as parents was to “make disciples.” If we failed to train our own children at home to be disciples of our Lord, how could we pretend to train anyone else?

It was Christ’s command to “go” that ultimately led us to educate our children at home. If we were to disciple our children after our Lord’s pattern, we realized, it would mean training not just their hearts but their minds as well. It was a full-time commitment. Home schooling was the natural extension of home discipleship. We would “go” to make disciples of our children.

Recently, though, another word has begun to engrave itself on my mind. As important as Christ’s word to “go” is to us, this word of our Lord has had far more impact. In fact, without it, going is empty and meaningless.

The word is “come.”  Before there ever was an exhortation to “go” in Matthew’s gospel, there was an invitation to “come.” Jesus said, “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)  Before we can “go” for Christ, we must “come” to Him.

As I have pondered Christ’s invitation to “come” as a Christian home schooling mother, I have been struck by how much I “go” for Jesus. My whole life revolves around going for my children—home schooling, classes, church, friends, field trips, special events, lessons, and more. Then, of course, there is going as a stay-at-home mother—cleaning, cooking good meals, doing wash, and all that living at home with my children entails. I do it all because I am driven in my spirit by Christ’s command to “go,” to be all that I can be as a Christian mother.

However, all that going can become wearisome and even a burden. I can spend all my energy going for my children until I am physically exhausted, emotionally drained, and spiritually depleted.  I can then stumble under the heavy burden of trying to keep giving when I have nothing left to give. Soon, the going is a yoke around my neck, weighing heavily on me as I trudge like a yoked ox through the hours of each day.

It is easy as a home schooling parent, always under the burden of “am I doing enough?” to hear only Christ’s exhortation to “go” while missing his invitation to “come.” I see so many home schooling mothers, like myself, living as though Christ’s invitation to “come” does not really exist, as though “go” is the only word we hear. But there can be no Great Commission without a Great Submission.

The gentle and humble Lord invites you to “come” to Him and to submit yourself to His yoke. You cannot keep going as a committed, busy, home schooling parent until you learn to come to the Lord in quietness and calm, giving yourself to Him with the same intensity that you are giving yourself for Him.

His invitation to “come” to Him is not just so you can rest for a few minutes, even as nice as that may sound to a too-busy home schooling parent. His invitation is really a promise of something He wants to give to you. Jesus invites those who are “weary and burdened” to come to Him because He can “give” them rest. It is not something you will do--like taking a nap--but something you will be given. There is a spiritual “rest for your soul” that Jesus promises to provide that far outweighs a few minutes of physical rest--but you must “come.”

Yes, He has a “yoke” for you to wear, but you must come to Him in order to “learn” from Him why His yoke is an easy one and not a burden. If all your going for Him has become a heavy weight on your shoulders, then you are not wearing His yoke. Jesus, who is “gentle and humble in heart,” does not want you to weary yourself under a burdensome yoke fashioned out of your own misunderstanding of who He is and what He expects of you.

If you are trying to “go” with the wrong yoke, you will not make it. If you “come” to Jesus and learn what His yoke is really like—that it is easy and light—then you can “go” with a restful soul. But you cannot learn it by reading books, listening to sermons, talking about it with friends, or reading an article about it. You will learn it only as you respond to Christ’s invitation to you to “come” to Him and learn from Him.

As important as the Great Commission is to the Christian life--even to the choice to home school--it must take second place behind the Great Submission.  If you are trying to “go” for Christ, be sure you have “come” to Him first and submitted yourself to His yoke. Read His Word, pray to Him, meditate on Him, learn from Him, and study His teaching. Come to the gentle, humble Savior, Who alone can give you rest and a reason to keep going for Him.

Read more about Sally Clarkson.

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