Prayer for the Week's Work and Rest

Lord of the Sabbath, we begin another week of work under your eye. You made the seventh day for our good, and you have made every day for your glory. Help us to receive both work and rest as gifts from your hand.

We confess that we are prone to two errors. Sometimes we turn your gifts into burdens, keeping rules for their own sake and forgetting the people they were meant to serve. Sometimes we ignore your gifts altogether, working without ceasing as though the world would stop if we did. Forgive us both, and teach us the freedom of those who know that you are Lord.

Give us diligence in the tasks before us this week, and honesty in how we do them. Give us kindness to those we work beside. And give us, when the week is spent, a true rest, one that trusts you to hold what we set down.

We thank you for Jesus, who fulfilled the law and offers rest to the weary. Let us find it in him. Amen.