A Year of Prayer: Season One Weekday DevotionalsSample

Think about your whole body for a moment. What parts feel relaxed and at ease? What parts feel tense and stressed? What parts are in pain and aching? What parts feel strong and secure?

Often, we don’t take time to notice our bodies and what they’re teaching or telling us until it’s too late and they’re ’interrupting’ our day. We don’t have time to make space for where our bodies are really doing well or championing us! How often do we think of or thank our bodies for how well our legs support our weight?

It’s not until our knees ‘complain’ as we climb stairs or kick balls that we have any attention drawn to them! How often do you sit and become aware of your breath - your lungs doing the thankfulness, unnoticed task of drawing life-giving breath - in and out, in and out? It isn’t until a cold morning or a particularly steep climb that many of us become in tune with the needs of our lungs, and often then to only lament our lack of fitness!

All of this is yet to mention our various abilities and capabilities. For those facing impairment or physical chronic, seen and unseen conditions, our bodies may feel like an enemy at times or a frenemy at others.

God cares about all these iterations of body and soul stamped together. We can’t have a wax stamp without the wax or the stamp! Our spiritual selves are etched into physical bodies, and this matters.

David speaks in today’s scripture of rest—physical rest and spiritual rest. Tears from eyes that express inner spiritual turmoil—the author has been delivered. Feet that seek the path the Spirit leads us to tread—here we find deliverance, too. Death that would end our awareness, our senses, our souls—here deliverance is made manifest.

We will find rest in the supernatural and the natural because God will deliver us.

Prayer: Jesus, while I wait on healing, I praise you. What I whisper in the dark, I speak as praise to you. While I wait for my eyes to droop, I praise you. From youth to old age, I praise you. I pray, give me rest.

Action: Pray and discern: Notice today the weather, your body, and your speech. What is God speaking to you through these three things?