A Year of Prayer: Season One Weekday DevotionalsSample

Have you ever met a craft hoarder or a ‘fixer-upperer’? In New Zealand, a joke from the 1980s was a round ‘To-it’ disc that friends and relatives would give as a gag gift. Why? Because when someone was asked about a chore or project that they hadn’t completed, if they replied, ‘I haven’t got around to it,’ you could hand them… a round ‘to it.’

Crafters, hobby mechanics, and op-shoppers all know the drill - the box of ‘to dos’ waits neglected in the corner for the rainy day that never seems to eventuate!

Today’s scripture is especially for those who feel like they are the rainy-day project waiting on God. If we were patient and honest, how many of us could admit we have many areas in our lives and spiritual selves that need a desperate upgrade?

Perhaps you’ve been faithfully waiting on God in prayer over it. Or maybe it’s been so long you’ve forgotten what the prayer was. But deep down, somewhere, we know there’s a craft project in us that God needs to do deep work on.

In Toy Story 2 (1999), the tiny toy cowboy known as Woody is found by a collector who fixes his seams, brightens his features, and repairs his flaws. He delivers him to pristine condition—most crucially, painting over the childish signature of ‘Andy’ inscribed on his foot. But even though Woody’s body is now brand new, that perfecting process has removed the lived-in look of a well-loved friend belonging to a family.

There’s something beautiful about the restorative promise of the God who ‘delivered me from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling, that I may walk before the Lord in the land of the living.’ But this isn’t about a perfecting process of restoring to factory settings. This is about a God who meets us at our point of need, seeks our weaknesses and imperfections, loves us deeply in the right there, and brings us perfect rest.

Are we comfortable resting in our imperfections? Maybe we can find relaxation in knowing that the very feet that help us walk ‘in the land of the living’ have our Saviour’s signature upon their souls.

Prayer: God, help me to trust you well.

Action: Pray and discern: What areas do you most need to ‘rest' in today?