Finding Rest

28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

---- Matthew 11:28-30

My first week in law school (“orientation week”), I was put into a small group of about ten of my peers, and a “mentor” (more properly described as a mere “tour guide,” as our only future interactions with her after that week were brief awkward nods of acknowledgement when we passed each other in the halls) showed us around the various parts of our school’s campus (basically two buildings, one draped in a basic taupe and the other in gray: both were as boring architecturally as the colors used for their exteriors). What stood out was where we were at the end of the tour. By mid-afternoon we were led by our mentor to a bar down the street from the law school. I found this a bit odd. What made this trip stranger still was that we were not the only 1L group there. In fact, our entire first year class, at various points in the afternoon, were led there by their respective tour guides to that same bar. My initial snide thought that our mentor was trying to be cool by leading us here was quickly replaced by a befuddlement most aptly described as “Huh???” Our 2L shepherd informed us that this is the place where most of the law students came to unwind after a long day, week, and/or exam. This was my introduction to how law students find rest.

Over the next three years I learned (and in some cases adopted) other things that the typical law student does to unwind or find rest during law school. These things all fell under the umbrella of “vegging.” I never thought these activities were detrimental in any way. “Vegging” by playing some video games, watching my favorite TV shows, or having a few drinks never seemed harmless (and to a small degree I would still agree with this statement), but what I realized was that these activities were harmful specifically because 1) they were at heart a reflection of my selfishness, 2) they were merely coping mechanisms (and thus in reality just self-help devices), and 3) nothing ever changed as a result. I did not look at my work in a better light nor was I really refreshed.

I realized the harmfulness of these activities through a story that an attorney friend of mine shared with a group of law students.

He told us that he coped well with the regular everyday rigors of his job, but on some days, days during which nothing goes right or everything and everyone require his attention, he was just spent. So spent, in fact, that when he came home, the last thing he wanted to do was talk. This would be fine, of course, if he didn’t have a wife and four kids. He dreaded opening the front door to his house to see his wife and kids, instead of looking forward to it. He dreaded it because he knew that now he was expected to be a husband and a father, but all he really wanted to do was run quickly to his study and fall into his favorite chair and not have to talk or think. He did not want to engage in his world, he wanted a temporary escape, he wanted to “veg,” and he knew this was wrong. This awareness, however, was not the most interesting (and sad) part of my friend’s story. Rather, it was his analysis of why he felt this way. He believed that his desire to simply be alone for a bit, to escape from his world, existed because he was not engaging in an intimate relationship with Christ! He believed that Jesus desired to hear him, engage him, and speak with him, and his own inability to share with Jesus the various things that wore out his patience and energy caused him to want to withdraw, to be just like every lawyer he knew.

He is absolutely correct. As believers we have, in Christ, not just our Savior, Lord, and advocate, but also our counselor, our friend, and our place of rest. In this passage Christ promises rest to the laborers and to the heavy-laden (in other words, all of us!). But this rest comes not just from a once-in-a-while prayer to him when we need him (the preceding passage specifically condemns such thinking – Matt. 11.16-24), it comes from having an intimate relationship with him. In fact, verse 29 is an invitation to a relationship that is personal and intimate. We know that to know God the Father, we must first know the Son, and this in turn helps us to know ourselves. Lest we try to limit what Christ says here as a reference to “merely” keeping the Sabbath, the verses immediately following specifically address the Sabbath, indicating that verse 29 is indeed about the everyday—an admonition to share with him our burden the moment we bear it.

This world, our jobs, and our studies often enslave us. Our desire to worship can get caught up in these things. The gospel, however, is a promise of freedom—but it is a freedom to enter into a relationship. We are being reminded here that we have a higher calling, one that can be seen through how we can find our rest.

So how do you find your rest? Is it with the world? Or with Christ?


~ Dan Kim, Deputy Director of Law Student Ministries, Christian Legal Society

Paul's Reminder to the Corinthians

Read 1 Cor. 1:18-2:1-5

For reflection : ²⁷But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; ²⁸God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, ²⁹so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. ³⁰And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, ³¹so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

Paul here reminds the Corinthians of the contrast between how the world defines wisdom (lofty words, eloquence, skilled in debating, intelligence) versus how God presented (and presents) wisdom (truth) and power through Christ. He also reminds them that the world could not “get over itself” and come to accept the truth that is Christ. Jesus became for them not the power of God but a stumbling block or foolishness. Secondly, lest they forget or do not understand the application of this passage to themselves Paul lays out in verses 26-31 how the power of God rests now in them – people who were (most of them) not of noble birth or known for worldly wisdom. (See also 26-31 in comparison to verses 5-7). Last Paul then points to himself as an example of God’s wisdom and power applied as they have witnessed (Ch. 2:1-5). All of this can be summed up in this way: all glory and honor and praise to God from whom all wisdom and power comes. He uses the lowly and shameful things (such as myself) to show that His power is not dependent upon the instrument.

So what if any relevance does this passage have to you as a law student? It is quite cliché to state that the study of law is hardly an exercise in humility, cliché but true. In fact, your legal education can, at minimum, strengthen whatever pride you have in your abilities (causing you to be more conceited) and cause you to care a little too much about how you do in your classes (versus how much you have really learned). At worst I have witnessed Christian students pursue their worth through their education. Certainly, it is not easy to maintain humility and kingdom, Christ-centered thinking in an environment in which the highest regarded job is becoming a judge – those whose occupation carries with it a cloak of worldly wisdom and power. In order to avoid this worldly self-centered thinking, students must come and reflect on what their faith is founded on – Jesus and him crucified (see verse 2 of chapter 2 – [f]or I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. – my emphasis). This passage is not advocating anti-intellectualism rather Paul is exhorting believers to purpose themselves to knowing Jesus, to never take their focus away from Jesus and how God chose His power and strength to be made manifest in him who suffered and died for us who then became to us “wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption.” Last, as Paul states in this letter, worldly wisdom does not lead to anything (eternally) while the cross is the power of God which changes lives! Our smart, creative, carefully constructed legal arguments may take us to the top of the rankings, win us accolades, and provide a well paying summer associate position or lucrative job but at the end of the day all of that cannot do what the cross does, change and transform lives. Our pursuit must be one in which we desire to have a wisdom not based on the world’s ideas of wisdom but one that is based upon the “foolishness” of the cross in order that our law degrees be instruments through which we can see redemption occur.
~ Dan Kim, Deputy Director of Law Student Ministries at CLS