by Jon Tyson
I like knowing the one who tells me "the burden is light" walks with the ease he urges for others.
I have watched Jon Tyson for more than a decade. I've seen him as Jesus follower, church planter, father, husband, and friend. He is a traveler on that liberated path! When Jon tells us Christ gives freedom from the tyranny of performance and success, these are not empty words. Yes, I've read his book; but more importantly I've read his life. Collectively, this is a powerful combination.
The Burden Is Light: Liberating Your Life from the Tyranny of Performance and Success is delightful to read for its depth, thought, prose, and everyday practicality. As Jon notes, God wants you to live your story well. This book is a great tool to close the gap "between your actual self and the self God desires for you." I highly recommend it.
Here are five of my takeaways from reading The Burden Is Light:
1. The call of Jesus is about living well: Jon puts William Irving's concept of "misliving" before us: "There is a danger that you will mislive--that despite all your activity . . . you will end up living a bad life." Tyson presents the challenge, but through his pages he demonstrates how Christ renders that fear a needless worry.
2. How to arrest comparison, the thief of joy: Who does not struggle with comparison, what Teddy Roosevelt tagged, "the thief of joy"? Again, Jon points me to Christ's better way, finding my true identity, finding my call, and running my race. Can someone speak these words over my life each morning?
3. Blessing: "All ministry flows from blessing, not for it. We minister because we are blessed, not to gain blessing." (page 97)
4. Breaking the bottle: Mary broke the bottle of perfume over the Savior's feet. She is the exemplar of passionate living, to abandon ourselves completely to Christ. "There is more power in a moment of [such] passion than in a lifetime of mediocrity." (page 122) What do I sense God calling me to abandon?
5. LIAR (low information-to-action ratio) to LOVER (Listen, Observe, Value, Encourage, Respond): God commissions me to attend carefully to those around me.
As Jon will share through the pages in this book, we must be prepared to turn aside, "we must learn to be still and listen for the Father's voice" (page 189). Reading these pages is an exercise toward that end; a happy end it will be.