Friday Prayer: What I Didn't Finish

Father, it's the last night of July and I'm holding a list of things I meant to do by now. The summer I was going to use well is nearly spent, the year is more than half gone, and most of my plans for these long days are still plans. The heat has worn me down more than I want to admit.

I keep treating the list as the measure of me - finished it and I was faithful, didn't and I failed you somehow. But you've never once asked me to carry a year on my own strength, and you don't love me by the inch of what I completed. You know how tired I am. You made me needing sleep and seasons and rest.

So I'm laying the list down tonight rather than dragging it into August. Take what I didn't finish. Forgive what I avoided. Keep what was real, even the small unseen things nobody counted. Your mercies are new in the morning, and I'd rather wake into them than into my own accounting. Thank you that tomorrow is not a verdict on today.