Entering God's Rest While Entering His Work

“Come to me all you that are weary and carrying heavy burdens, 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).

Jesus simultaneously extends an invitation to rest and to work. Somehow when we enter Jesus’ work, we also enter his rest. These verses have guided my prayers for me and for our student leaders since the beginning of the school year. Often ministry at Penn feels like an overwhelming amount of work and not a whole lot of rest.

This is because we allow the values of Penn’s high-pressure, achievement-oriented culture to shape our understanding of leadership, rather than Jesus. As leaders, we take on burdens Jesus hasn’t asked us to carry: burdens of perfectionism, people-pleasing, competition or success.

As we are busy in ministry, we pray that our outreach will be a blessing, rather than a burden. We pray that we will rest in Jesus and look to him for strength to love people well. We pray that our leadership will be an opportunity for us to work with Jesus and learn from him, rather than a means for proving ourselves to others. We pray that in the midst of the work, we may also encounter his rest.

—Ian Sneed and his wife, Courtney, live in Philadelphia and work as InterVarsity staff together at the University of Pennsylvania. One of their favorite ways to rest is to stay home on a Saturday night and read.