"The command of Jesus is hard, unutterably hard, for those who try to resist it. But for those who willingly submit, the yoke is easy, and the burden is light. 'His commandments are not grievous' (1 John 5.3). The commandment of Jesus is not a sort of spiritual shock treatment. Jesus asks nothing of us without giving us the strength to perform it. His commandment never seeks to destroy life, but to foster, strengthen and heal it." (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Introduction to The Cost of Discipleship.)
The reason for this is that God, who made us through his Word, knows what is best for us in terms of our being and acting. When we think we know best, when we think we can create ourselves and make ourselves into the people we determine to be, then we turn from God, from God's creation, redemption, and transformation. Then the command of Jesus, true God and true human, weighs us down, breaks us, even kills us. When we give up all that misguided and even arrogant nonsense, when we give up to God and to his Word, then we die and rise in Jesus to live as truly human. What could be more freeing than to be and to do what we are meant to be and to do?
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