Max Lucado Daily: PRAY IT THROUGH - August 21, 2026
No verse in the Bible promises the absence of struggle. Quite the contrary. Scripture is stained with tears, problems, injustices, immorality, and wars. Tough times come with life. But troubling times don’t have to take the life out of your life.
God gives us this invitation: “Pray it through.” It is what troubles you, fatigues you, shames you. It won’t have the last word. God will. Prayer slaps handcuffs on the culprit. Prayer marches the problem into the presence of God, the One who can solve it.
The prophet Elijah is remembered as an example of radical prayer. He is living proof that “when a believing person prays, great things happen” (James 5:16 NCV).
Unbreakable Courage
Psalm 139
A David Psalm
1–6 139 God, investigate my life;
get all the facts firsthand.
I’m an open book to you;
even from a distance, you know what I’m thinking.
You know when I leave and when I get back;
I’m never out of your sight.
You know everything I’m going to say
before I start the first sentence.
I look behind me and you’re there,
then up ahead and you’re there, too—
your reassuring presence, coming and going.
This is too much, too wonderful—
I can’t take it all in!
7–12 Is there any place I can go to avoid your Spirit?
to be out of your sight?
If I climb to the sky, you’re there!
If I go underground, you’re there!
If I flew on morning’s wings
to the far western horizon,
You’d find me in a minute—
you’re already there waiting!
Then I said to myself, “Oh, he even sees me in the dark!
At night I’m immersed in the light!”
It’s a fact: darkness isn’t dark to you;
night and day, darkness and light, they’re all the same to you.
13–16 Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out;
you formed me in my mother’s womb.
I thank you, High God—you’re breathtaking!
Body and soul, I am marvelously made!
I worship in adoration—what a creation!
You know me inside and out,
you know every bone in my body;
You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit,
how I was sculpted from nothing into something.
Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth;
all the stages of my life were spread out before you,
The days of my life all prepared
before I’d even lived one day.
17–22 Your thoughts—how rare, how beautiful!
God, I’ll never comprehend them!
I couldn’t even begin to count them—
any more than I could count the sand of the sea.
Oh, let me rise in the morning and live always with you!
And please, God, do away with wickedness for good!
And you murderers—out of here!—
all the men and women who belittle you, God,
infatuated with cheap god-imitations.
See how I hate those who hate you, God,
see how I loathe all this godless arrogance;
I hate it with pure, unadulterated hatred.
Your enemies are my enemies!
23–24 Investigate my life, O God,
find out everything about me;
Cross-examine and test me,
get a clear picture of what I’m about;
See for yourself whether I’ve done anything wrong—
then guide me on the road to eternal life.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, August 21, 2026
by Mike Wittmer
TODAY'S SCRIPTURE
2 Timothy 4:1-8
I can’t impress this on you too strongly. God is looking over your shoulder. Christ himself is the Judge, with the final say on everyone, living and dead. He is about to break into the open with his rule, so proclaim the Message with intensity; keep on your watch. Challenge, warn, and urge your people. Don’t ever quit. Just keep it simple.
3–5 You’re going to find that there will be times when people will have no stomach for solid teaching, but will fill up on spiritual junk food—catchy opinions that tickle their fancy. They’ll turn their backs on truth and chase mirages. But you—keep your eye on what you’re doing; accept the hard times along with the good; keep the Message alive; do a thorough job as God’s servant.
6–8 You take over. I’m about to die, my life an offering on God’s altar. This is the only race worth running. I’ve run hard right to the finish, believed all the way. All that’s left now is the shouting—God’s applause! Depend on it, he’s an honest judge. He’ll do right not only by me, but by everyone eager for his coming.
Today's Insights
While encouraging Timothy to be faithful to his ministerial calling, Paul summarized his own service for Christ and what he looked forward to after he died: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day” (2 Timothy 4:7-8). As the apostle anticipated his departure from labor to reward (v. 6), he was conscious of what really mattered in life. Each believer in Jesus has been given different tasks to do on this earth. With the Spirit’s help, we can strive to do them faithfully. We all long to hear the voice of Christ, our Savior, say, “Well done, good and faithful servant!” (Matthew 25:21).
Paul’s Last Words: 2 Timothy 4
Faithfully Serving Others
Discharge all the duties of your ministry. 2 Timothy 4:5
On a Thursday, in the church’s fellowship hall, sandwiches and watermelon slices were set out, waiting to be consumed by mourners sitting on metal folding chairs placed on stained carpet. It was a perfectly normal funeral, except for the preacher. He was a well-known speaker who has preached to stadiums full of thousands. Now he was speaking just as enthusiastically to this weekday gathering.
Paul told his protégé Timothy, “Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season . . . . discharge all the duties of your ministry” (2 Timothy 4:2-5). All the duties. Not only the big ones performed on large stages with bright lights. Also ordinary, weekday duties. The speeches that won’t be recorded and broadcast for generations to come. The tasks that few will see. Do those well too.
Because someone is watching. Paul told Timothy he was serving “in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead” (v. 1). Your platform may be small, but your audience could not be more important. Jesus waits expectantly for your service. Do it for Him, relying on the power of His Spirit. He will be honored as you humbly, faithfully minister to others.
Reflect & Pray
How much heart are you putting into your everyday tasks? How would God have you think about your ordinary jobs on this ordinary day?
Heavenly Father, may I serve You and others faithfully today.
You can use these six devotions help you start an ongoing conversation with the God that always shows up for His children. He desires to hear everything—every ordinary, mundane, and small detail of your life: Praying Through Ordinary Life
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, August 21, 2026
The Ministry of the Unnoticed
Blessed are the poor in spirit. — Matthew 5:3
The New Testament notices things we completely overlook. When Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” he is elevating a state which counts for nothing according to our standards—the state of being poor. Today’s preaching tends to emphasize dazzling, easily noticed qualities, like strength of will or beauty of character. We often hear preachers telling us to “decide for Christ,” placing the emphasis on our own effort and “goodness”—things our Lord never trusted. He never asks us to decide for him. He asks us to yield to him, which is very different.
At the bedrock of Jesus Christ’s kingdom is the unaffected loveliness of the commonplace. What I am blessed in is my poverty. If I know I have no strength of will, no nobility of disposition, Jesus says I am blessed; it’s through this poverty that I enter his kingdom. I can’t enter his kingdom as a “good” man or woman; I can enter only as a pauper.
The true character of the loveliness that counts for God is always unconscious. Conscious influence is smug and self-righteous and unchristian. If I start looking for evidence of my own usefulness, I instantly lose the bloom of the Lord’s touch. “Whoever believes in me,” Jesus said, “rivers of living water will flow from within them” (John 7:38). If I examine the outflow, I lose the touch of the Lord.
Who are the people who have influenced us most? Not the ones who thought they did, but those without the slightest notion of their impact, those who radiated the unconscious loveliness of the Lord’s touch. We always know when Jesus is at work in someone’s life, because he produces something inspiring in the midst of the commonplace.
Psalms 107-109; 1 Corinthians 4
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
No one could have had a more sensitive love in human relationship than Jesus; and yet He says there are times when love to father and mother must be hatred in comparison to our love for Him.
So Send I You, 1301 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, August 21, 2026
Your Eyes - Where Sin Begins - #10335
Scripture: Matthew 6:22-23
I think my son was about four the first time we played baseball together, and I taught him with a plastic Wiffle bat and Wiffle ball. I remember telling him rule number one of baseball even then, and really of other sports too. I said, "Now, son, keep your eye on the ball." Well, I've told him that lots of times over his growing up years, and it wasn't always about baseball. Whenever he's had trouble with his hitting, which has improved, it usually was because he wasn't watching where he should be.
Now, of course, he's a grown man with a family of his own. We recently went outside with a ball and bat. He threw and I attempted to hit the ball. You can probably guess what's coming. I wasn't connecting. So he gave me a little advice, "Hey, Dad, keep your eye on the ball!" The tables have turned.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Your Eyes - Where Sin Begins."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Matthew 6:22-23. Jesus is talking about the importance of our eyes in following Him and what we should be keeping our eyes on and off of. It's a lesson in how not to strike out spiritually. Listen to His words: "The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness."
Now, Jesus here is not talking about your need for an optometrist or getting stronger glasses. He's talking about the fact that your eyes are the point of entry for everything you think about, and what you think about is what turns out to be the beginning point of the actions you commit. So your eyes gather input that is sent to your brain and stored there, and then as the Bible says, "As a man thinks in his heart so is he." But it all begins at eye level.
Do you remember what Jesus had just said in the previous chapter, Matthew 5:28? He said, "I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart." There are the eyes again. The place you have to stop sexual sin is at eye level. It's like baseball. If your eye is on the right thing, you'll be okay. If your eye is looking at the wrong thing, you're going to fail. No Christians have ever had to live with the bombardment of sexual images that we get daily. Nobody's ever had the media we have, and we get so much we're almost numb to it.
See, a fundamental discipline of a Jesus follower has to be training your eyes. It's a firm resolve that you just won't look at what is suggested. When a billboard appears with a provocative picture, you just commit yourself to instantly look the other way; you don't even consider what you'll do. When a magazine ad, or a TV channel, an Internet website; maybe you're jumping around and you're looking at all kinds of channels or websites and suddenly there's this sexually attractive image in front of you. You could linger. But no, you can't afford to do that. You move on quickly.
Training your eyes is as practical as simply not allowing your eyes to wander beyond the face of the opposite sex or just turning away. There's a powerful temptation isn't there to linger, to fanaticize, to kind of work it over in your mind, to let your eyes sin? You say, "Well, I didn't do anything." And yet the Bible says that if it's gotten to your eyes, then through them you are full of darkness. That's what Jesus taught us.
Every time you linger on a sexually tempting image, you send ammunition to your enemy - ammunition you can be guaranteed he will use to defeat you spiritually. So you've got to avoid spiritual strike outs, and that begins with training your eyes.
