When Abby was a sophomore in high school, she and her mom heard a news story about a young man who’d been critically injured in a plane accident—an accident that took the lives of his father and stepmother. Although they didn’t know this person, Abby’s mom said, “We just need to pray for him and his family.” And they did.

Fast forward a few years, and one day Abby walked into a class at her university. A male student offered her the seat next to him. That student was Austin Hatch, the plane crash victim Abby had prayed for. Soon they were dating, and in 2018 they were married.

“It’s crazy to think that I was praying for my future husband,” Abby said in an interview shortly before they were married.

It can be easy to limit our prayers to our own personal needs and for those closest to us, without taking the time to pray for others. However, Paul, writing to the Christians at Ephesus, told them to “pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kind of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and keep praying for all the Lord’s people” (Ephesians 6:18). Also, 1 Timothy 2:1 tells us to pray “for all people,” especially those in authority.

Let’s intercede for others—even people we don’t know. It’s one of the ways we can “carry each other’s burdens” (Galatians 6:2).

I was immediately intrigued when I noticed a tattoo of a bowling ball knocking down pins on my friend Erin’s ankle. Erin was inspired to get this unique tattoo after listening to Sara Groves’s song, “Setting Up the Pins.” The clever lyrics encourage listeners to find joy in the repetitive, routine tasks that sometimes feel as pointless as manually setting up bowling pins over and over again, only to have someone knock them down.

Laundry. Cooking. Mowing the lawn. Life seems full of tasks that, once completed, just have to been done again—and again. This isn’t a new struggle but an old frustration, one wrestled with in the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes. The book opens with the writer bemoaning the endless cycles of daily human life as futile (v. 3), even meaningless, because “what has been will be again, what has been done will be done again” (1:9).

Yet, like my friend, the writer was able to regain a sense of joy and meaning by remembering our ultimate fulfillment comes as we “fear [reverence] God and keep his commandments” (12:13). There’s comfort in knowing that God values even the ordinary, seemingly mundane aspects of life, and will reward our faithfulness (12:14).

What are the “pins” you are continually setting up? In those times when repetitive tasks begin to feel wearisome, may we take a moment to offer each task to God as an offering of love.

“Don’t ever miss the chance to show your babies the moon!” she said. Before our mid-week prayer service began, a group of us talked about the previous night’s Harvest Moon. The full moon was especially striking, as it seemed to sit on the horizon. Mrs. Webb was the elder voice in our conversation, a gray-haired lover of God’s grand creation. She knew my wife and I had two children in our house at the time, and she wanted to help me train up them in a way worth going. Don’t ever miss the chance to show your babies the moon!

Mrs. Webb would’ve made a good psalmist. Her brand of attentiveness is reflected in David’s description of the heavenly bodies that “have no speech . . . yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world” (Psalm 19:3–4). Neither the psalmist nor Mrs. Webb had any intention of worshiping the moon or the stars, but rather the creative hands behind them. The heavens and skies reveal nothing less than the glory of God (v. 1).

We too can encourage those around us—from babies and teenagers to spouses and neighbors—to stop, look, and listen for declarations and proclamations of God’s glory are all around us. Drawing attention to the work of His hands in turn leads to worshiping the awesome God behind the whole show. Don’t ever miss the chance.

The Mojave Desert includes the expected sand dunes, dry canyons, mesas, and mountains of most deserts. But American biologist Edmund Jaeger observed that every few years an abundance of rain results in “such a wealth of blossoms that almost every foot of sand or gravelly soil is hidden beneath a blanket of flowers.” The Mojave Wildflower Show isn’t a yearly phenomenon, though. Researchers confirm the dry earth needs to be soaked by storms and warmed by the sun, at just the right times, before blooms will cover the desert with vibrant colors.

This image of God bringing forth life despite the arid terrain reminds me of the prophet Isaiah. He shared an encouraging vison of hope after delivering God’s message of judgment on all nations (Isaiah 35). Describing a future time when God will make all things right, the prophet said, “The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom” (v. 1). He declared God’s rescued people will enter His kingdom with “singing; . . . everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away” (v. 10).

With our eternal future secured by God’s promises, we can trust Him through life’s seasons of drought and drenching storms. Deeply rooted in His love, we can grow, blooming into His likeness until, at just the right time, Jesus returns and sets all things right.

John and Mary were walking their dog on their property when they stumbled on a rusty can partially unearthed by recent rains. They took the can home and opened it, discovering a cache of gold coins over a century old! The couple returned to the spot and located seven more cans containing 1,427 coins in all. Then they protected their treasure by reburying it elsewhere.

The cache of coins (valued at $10 million) is called the Saddle Ridge Hoard, the largest find of its kind in US history. The story is strikingly reminiscent of a parable Jesus told: “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field” (Matthew 13:44).

Tales of buried treasure have captured imaginations for centuries, though such discoveries rarely happen. But Jesus tells of a treasure accessible to all who confess their sins and receive and follow Him (John 1:12).

We’ll never come to an end of that treasure. As we leave our old lives and pursue God and His purposes, we encounter His worth. Through “the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:7), God offers us treasure beyond imagination—new life as His sons and daughters, new purpose on earth, and the incomprehensible joy of eternity with Him.