“Break the cords of their yoke …” (2:3)

A mature adult is never completely free from responsibilities, but we choose what yokes we wear. Some yokes are harder to remove than others. The yokes of addiction to alcohol, tobacco, or drugs physically attach themselves to our shoulders, whereas the yokes of addiction to shopping or our iDevices rest so comfortably and naturally that we are loathe to remove them. The yoke is the device that drives the cart. We can choose to take on the yokes of family, service to God and community, and friends first and let those activities be our priorities, rather than yoking ourselves to other things that distract us from what should be most important.