Perhaps you are waiting for work. Waiting for an answer. Waiting for circumstances to change. Waiting for someone you love. Or waiting for a prayer you have carried for months or even years.

James gives us a surprising way to think about these seasons:

“So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.” - James 1:4

That changes the question.

Instead of only asking, “God, when will this end?” we can also ask, “God, what are you growing in me while I am here?”

Waiting does not have to mean doing nothing.

We can pray. We can read Scripture slowly. We can serve someone nearby. We can speak hope instead of feeding our frustration. We can notice what God may be teaching us.

Perhaps it is patience.

Perhaps humility.

Perhaps trust.

I know how easy it is to try to force things forward. I can fill the diary, work harder, push doors and convince myself that more effort will make the waiting disappear. But often it simply leaves me tired.

There is another way.

We can let God set the pace.

The situation may not change straight away. But our hearts can.

Peace can begin to replace panic. Strength can replace strain. The waiting room can become a classroom.

You are not necessarily stuck.

You may be being formed.

So today, ask one simple question:

Lord, what are you growing in me while I wait?

Then take one small step of trust.

🎥 Watch today’s 5-Minute Daily Devotional:

That was part of John the Baptist’s experience.

John was in prison. He sent his disciples to Jesus with a question: was Jesus really the Messiah?

Jesus pointed towards what was happening around them. Blind people could see. Lame people could walk. People were being healed. Good news was reaching the poor.

God was clearly at work.

But John’s prison door remained shut.

That detail matters.

Sometimes we imagine that strong faith means every prayer will eventually receive the answer we want. John’s story gives us a harder, deeper picture of trust.

God can be good while the door remains closed.

He can be active while we are still waiting.

He can love us deeply without giving us the outcome we asked for.

That does not mean we pretend disappointment does not hurt. We can tell God exactly how we feel. In fact, honest prayer is one of the ways trust grows.

Then we can look around and notice where God is already at work.

And finally, we can open our hands.

“Lord, I will let you lead.”

I have had seasons in ministry when I prayed for funds, volunteers or a clear way forward. Sometimes the answer came. Sometimes it did not. Looking back, I can see God’s hand in both.

That does not make every disappointment easy to understand.

But it does remind me of this:

When God withholds, he doesn’t withdraw.

He is still near. He is still good. And even in the waiting, his hands remain steady.

So where might God be saying “not yet” in your life?

What would trusting him with open hands look like today?

Watch today’s 5-minute devotional:

The diary fills. The phone pings. Someone needs an answer. There is work to finish, food to prepare, people to care for and another task waiting before the last one is done.

Then we reach the evening and realise something important has been squeezed out. We wanted to spend time with God, but the day simply ran away.

Psalm 46:10 says:

“Be still, and know that I am God!”

That does not mean you need an hour of silence every morning. You may not have one.

Start smaller.

Find ten minutes.

Choose one chair. Open your Bible. Read a short Psalm or a few verses from one of the Gospels. Ask, “Lord, what are you saying to me?”

Then stop.

You do not have to fill every second with words.

Listen.

Let one truth stay with you. Pray a simple prayer. Then ask what one faithful step God might be inviting you to take.

The aim is not to impress God with your spiritual discipline. God is already near. You are simply making room to notice his presence and receive what he wants to give.

Ten minutes will not make every problem disappear.

But those minutes may change the person who walks into the problem.

Stillness can clear some of the fog. Scripture can give light for the next step. God’s presence can quiet fear.

And those small choices add up.

As I say in today’s devotional, ten faithful minutes with God can shape the other twenty-three hours of your day.

So don’t wait for life to become less busy.

Choose a time.

Choose a place.

Be still.

And begin.

A diagnosis arrives. Someone we love dies. A relationship ends. Work disappears. Plans we thought were secure suddenly unravel.

Psalm 46 speaks into precisely those moments:

“God is our refuge and strength, always ready to help in times of trouble.”

What strikes me is that the psalm does not begin by promising that trouble will disappear. Mountains still crumble. The earth still shakes. Life can still feel frighteningly unstable.

The promise is that God remains.

That matters because our first instinct is often to ask God to change our circumstances. Sometimes he does. But Psalm 46 offers us something we need even before circumstances change. God himself becomes our safe place.

I have sat beside people in some of life’s hardest moments. There are times when words cannot repair what has happened. Grief does not need a clever answer.

Sometimes all we can do is sit together, pray and find one small piece of solid ground.

That may be what faith looks like today.

Not moving mountains.

Not pretending everything is fine.

Not finding enough strength within yourself.

Perhaps faith today simply means gripping God’s promise with both hands and saying, “Lord, I need you to hold me.”

The beautiful truth of Psalm 46 is that God does not wait until the storm has passed before coming near. He meets us in it.

So if life feels fragile today, you do not need to manufacture courage.

Run to God.

Tell him how things really feel.

And trust that the One who has held you before is strong enough to hold you now.

Watch today’s 5-minute devotional:

Reflection: What would change if you trusted that God was your strength before anything else changed?

Others sound like our own voice.

“I’m fine.”

“I have to cope.”

“I shouldn’t need help.”

“I’ll never be enough.”

Repeat something often enough and it can start to feel like truth. That is what makes our inner stories so powerful.

Jeremiah 17:9 gives us an uncomfortable warning about trusting our hearts without question. The issue is not that every feeling is wrong. Feelings matter. They can tell us something important about what is happening inside us.

But feelings are not always reliable guides.

Fear can tell us we are alone.

Shame can tell us God has given up on us.

Self-doubt can tell us that weakness makes us useless.

That is why prayer matters.

Prayer is not pretending everything is fine. It is the place where pretending can stop.

We can tell God what we really think. What we fear. What we have started believing about ourselves.

Then we can ask a very simple question:

Is this actually true?

That question can change things.

The devotional describes a season when I felt I had to remain strong because showing weakness might let people down. In prayer, another question came: Who told you that?

Sometimes that is the question we need too.

Who told you that you were not enough?

Who told you that you were alone?

Who told you that God was disappointed with you?

Bring the story into God’s light. Then return to Scripture and let his truth answer it.

The old voice may not vanish overnight. But each time we choose God’s truth over fear, its grip becomes weaker.

Watch today’s 5-minute devotional here:

And perhaps carry this question with you today:

What have I been telling myself - and what does God say instead?

“If I don’t sort this out, who will?”

“If I stop pushing, everything might fall apart.”

“If I let go, I might lose control.”

We rarely say those words aloud. Yet we can live as though the whole world rests on our shoulders.

Psalm 46:10 interrupts that way of living:

“Be still, and know that I am God!”

Stillness is not weakness. It does not mean ignoring our duties or walking away from people who need us.

It means remembering who is God and who is not.

That can be hard when life is busy. At home there are people to care for. At work there are decisions to make. At the corps there is always another need. Our diaries fill up. Our minds keep working. Even prayer can become another item squeezed into the day.

Yet prayer is meant to be more than another task.

Prayer gives us somewhere to put the weight.

Perhaps that is what you need today.

Take five quiet minutes. Open your Bible to Psalm 46. Read verse 10 slowly.

Then ask yourself:

What am I gripping too tightly?

A relationship?

A decision?

Someone else’s future?

Your work?

Money?

Your health?

Your plans?

Name it before God.

You do not need to solve it during those five minutes. Simply place it back into his hands.

Letting go does not mean that you no longer care.

It means recognising that you were never meant to carry everything alone.

God is still God.

He has not gone anywhere.

And you can rest in that today.

Watch today’s 5-minute devotional:

There are times when life simply refuses to follow the plan.

You wait for an answer. A door stays closed. Something changes without warning. You try harder, think harder and perhaps even pray harder, yet you still cannot make things turn out the way you hoped.

I know how tempting it is to respond by gripping everything more tightly.

But sometimes the tighter our grip becomes, the more tired we become.

That is the theme running through this week’s Battle Drill Daily Devotional series.

Psalm 46:10 says, “Be still, and know that I am God.” Those words are not asking us to stop caring. They are inviting us to stop acting as though everything depends on us.

Across the week, we will explore what that means when life feels shaky, when the voice in our head cannot be trusted, when prayer seems unanswered, and when waiting stretches far longer than we hoped.

One simple practice might help today.

Open your hands.

Name the thing you are trying hardest to control. Tell God plainly what you want, what you fear and what you cannot fix. Then sit quietly for a moment.

You do not have to solve everything today.

Sometimes the next faithful step begins by admitting that you cannot see the whole road.

If that sounds like where you are just now, I hope you’ll join me for the full seven-part series on YouTube.

Watch the series here from tomorrow: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIZB7wGFzvpU

If that’s where you are this morning, David is good company.

We tend to remember David for the giant and the harp and the psalms. We remember him less for the rest of it. He gave in to lust. He let pride take the reins. He failed to act justly at the very moment justice mattered most. If you or I had made the mess David made, we’d probably assume God would quietly withdraw. That would be fair. That would be reasonable.

But here’s grace: God stayed.

Scripture puts it plainly. “And David became more and more powerful, because the Lord God of Heaven’s Armies was with him” (2 Samuel 5:10, NLT). Notice where the power comes from. Not from David’s talent, or his crown, or his comeback. From God’s presence.

David’s gift wasn’t that he never fell. It was that he knew how to get up, and he knew how to get down on his knees. He humbled himself, confessed, and trusted God to do what he couldn’t do himself.

That’s the invitation today, and it’s harder than it sounds. Because most of us would rather be strong than be honest. We’d rather manage the weakness quietly than bring it into the light.

But your willpower will fade. Your plans will wobble. God won’t.

So name the thing. Bring it to him. Ask for his strength rather than working up your own. Where you are weak, that’s exactly where his strength begins.

Where do I need to stop striving and start leaning on God’s strength today?

Watch today’s five-minute devotional here:

We often treat that feeling as a nuisance. We tell ourselves we’re too sensitive, or that we should toughen up and get on with the day. But I want to suggest something different. That ache is not a flaw in you. It’s a fingerprint.

You were made in the image of a God who loves justice, who defends the widow and the orphan, who lifts up the crushed. So when injustice troubles you, you are simply feeling a small echo of what God feels. It’s the Spirit stirring, longing for what God longs for: a world of justice, a world of mercy, a world of peace.

But here is the harder truth. Noticing isn’t enough.

That’s what Mordecai was pressing on Esther. He didn’t ask her to feel sad about the decree. He asked her to act - to go to the king, to beg for mercy, to risk everything for people who couldn’t speak for themselves. And Esther was afraid. Scripture doesn’t hide that. She knew exactly what it might cost her. She rose anyway.

We tend to think courage means the absence of fear. It doesn’t. It means moving while the fear is still there.

You may not have a throne room. But you have influence somewhere - in your family, your workplace, your street, your corps. Someone will listen to you. Someone is waiting for you.

So ask God today: what would you have me do? Then listen. Then act.

Because justice starts when we stop looking away.

Watch today’s five-minute devotional here:

But there is a quieter one, and I suspect it has more of us than all the others put together. It’s delay.

Delay doesn’t feel like rebellion. That’s what makes it so effective. We don’t tell God no. We tell him not yet. We say we need more clarity, more time, more certainty that this is really him. It sounds like wisdom. Sometimes it even sounds like humility. But underneath, it is usually something simpler: we want to stay in charge.

Psalm 119:60 gives us a very different picture. “I will hurry, without delay, to obey your commands.” There’s no weighing up. No drawn-out process. Just trust, expressed as movement.

I find David’s story sobering here. He was a warrior, a worshipper, a king. And yet when it came to obedience, he often paused when he should have moved, and covered up when he should have confessed. Those pauses were not small. They cost him, and they cost the people around him.

Here’s what I’ve noticed in my own life: the longer I wait, the more weight I carry. Delay is not neutral. Every hesitation plants a seed, and seeds grow roots. Given long enough, delay quietly becomes disobedience.

But the good news is real. God is patient. His grace doesn’t run out when we stall. He doesn’t walk away when we hesitate. His voice still calls. His Spirit still nudges.

So what would it look like to say yes now, rather than later? Perhaps a message you’ve been meaning to send. A step you’ve been afraid to take. A decision you’ve delayed because the cost feels too high.

And note this: to hurry is not to rush. It is readiness. It is a heart that says, God, I trust you more than I trust myself.

Watch today’s five-minute devotional here:

What simple act of obedience could you choose today instead of delay? Hit reply and tell me. I read every one.

When even Joab can see the problem, you know something has gone wrong.

David wasn’t counting for planning. He was counting to weigh his worth. He wanted a number that would tell him he mattered. And the result was loss, grief and regret.

I know that pull. I’ve clung to outcomes. I’ve measured myself by what I do and how much I achieve. I’ve tried to prove something, even to God, as though grace were a wage rather than a gift. And here’s what I’ve learned the hard way: the more we try to prove, the further we drift from grace.

Pride is a stronghold that sneaks in quietly. It rarely announces itself. It just whispers reasonable things. You’ve got this. You don’t need help. You’ve earned this. And slowly, gently, it pushes God to the edges of the room.

But David’s story doesn’t end in ruin. He saw the damage. He came back in humility. He repented, and God in his infinite mercy met him there. That’s the hope for all of us. Even when pride gets loud, grace speaks louder.

The antidote to pride is surrender. It’s choosing to kneel when we’d rather climb. It’s letting God lead even when we’re certain we’ve got it sorted.

We see this in church life too. When ministry becomes about the numbers, the praise, the platform, we lose sight of the mission. But when we choose grace over ego, we get to join God in something far bigger than ourselves.

This week: name one decision where you’ll let God lead, not your pride. Then tell one trusted friend, so it isn’t just a private thought.

Watch today’s five-minute devotional here:

It was late afternoon. David had rested, got up, and gone walking on the palace roof. He looked out over the city and noticed a woman bathing. Then he sent someone to find out who she was (2 Samuel 11:2-3).

Read it slowly and you’ll see the steps. He didn’t look away. He looked longer. He asked questions. He took action. Four small movements, and a kingdom started to crack.

Let’s be careful here, because this isn’t a sermon against desire. God gave us desire. Desire for intimacy, for connection, for beauty. It’s his gift. But when we stop guarding our hearts, desire turns inward. It turns selfish. It starts to twist.

In that moment David forgot who he was. Not a man entitled to whatever he wanted, but a shepherd king shaped by God’s own heart. And once lust took hold, everything else unravelled. His judgement. His courage. His conscience.

You may never have stood on a palace roof. But you’ve stood at the edge of a decision. The message that lingers. The image on your phone. The inner narrative nobody else sees. That’s where the battle begins.

I’ve heard it said that sin will take you further than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you want to pay. It promises intimacy and delivers emptiness.

But here’s the good news. Grace is stronger than shame. David fell, and David returned. He confessed. He humbled himself. He ran back to God, and God restored him.

In the Army I’ve watched grace rebuild lives that everyone had written off. Hope springing from the ashes of failure. Purity rising in people who thought they were beyond redemption.

You are not your worst choice. You are his child, made for more.

Watch today’s five-minute devotional here:

You get up. You smile at work. You serve at church on Sunday. You cook the tea and ask about everyone’s day. And underneath all of it, something keeps whispering. You are not enough. You’ll fail again. Give up now. You want to move forward. Part of you keeps pulling back.

Paul understood this. “We are human, but we don’t wage war as humans do. We use God’s mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments” (2 Corinthians 10:3-4, NLT).

Notice what he calls those thoughts. Not facts. False arguments. Strongholds of human reasoning. They feel true because they are loud and because they have been there a long time. That is not the same thing as being true.

Here is the part I want you to hear. You cannot win this by willpower alone. And you were never asked to. God’s Spirit gives you the power to take every thought captive. Your job is not to be strong enough. Your job is to keep showing up.

The psalmist put it plainly: “I am determined to keep your decrees to the very end” (Psalm 119:112). Determined. Not victorious yet. Not finished. Just refusing to stop.

This work is daily. It is usually unseen. Nobody hands out medals for it. But it changes a life.

So today, try three small things. Name one lie out loud. Answer it with one line of Scripture. Then tell one trusted person you are in a fight.

Maybe you’ve tried before and you feel stuck again. Today is a new chance. God is still at work in you. The war in your mind is not lost. It has only just begun, and you are not walking into it alone.

Watch today’s 5-minute devotional here:

You know the pattern. You make a fresh start. You pray about it and you really mean it this time. Then, before long, the old behaviour creeps back in. What follows is usually frustration, and often something heavier: shame. The quiet conclusion that you are simply the sort of person who cannot change.

Paul offers Timothy another way. “Give your complete attention to these matters. Throw yourself into your tasks so that everyone will see your progress” (1 Timothy 4:15, NLT). Notice he says progress, not perfection. Notice, too, that the verbs are ongoing. Not half-hearted. Not once and done. Daily, faithfully, repeatedly. Change takes root not in the drama of a breakthrough, but in the rhythm of obedience.

David knew this. He conquered Jerusalem and built a city, but inside that city there were still strongholds of his own: lust, pride, disobedience, silence in the face of injustice. And yet we read that he became more and more powerful, because the Lord God Almighty was with him (2 Samuel 5:10). Why? Because when David fell, he got back up. He repented. He humbled himself. He returned to God again and again.

We see the same thing in the Salvation Army every week. In addiction recovery. In discipleship groups. In ordinary people showing up at work, at home, and in their communities and choosing faithfulness one more time. People grow bit by bit. Not by magic, but by grace and practice.

You don’t need to have it all sorted. You just need to start.

So here’s today’s question: what one habit is God inviting you to practise today?

▶ Watch the five-minute devotional here:

Hello friend,

Can I ask you something? Is there something in your life you’ve tried to change more than once?

Maybe it’s a habit. Maybe it’s a thought that turns up every morning before you’ve even had a cup of tea. You are not enough. You’ll fail again. Maybe it’s pride, and you’d rather not admit it. Maybe it’s the thing you keep meaning to do, and keep putting off.

I’ve been there. I still am, some weeks.

Here’s what I’ve been learning. Change rarely arrives as a breakthrough. It usually arrives as a rhythm. Paul told Timothy to give his complete attention to these matters, to throw himself into them so everyone could see his progress. Not one big moment. Lots of small, ordinary ones.

David is a good example of this. He got things badly wrong. Lust, pride, silence when he should have spoken. And yet Scripture says he grew stronger, because God was with him. Not because he was flawless, but because he knew how to get back up.

That’s the bit that gives me hope. God isn’t asking for perfection. He’s asking for persistence.

So if you’ve tried before and it didn’t stick, please don’t read that as proof that nothing changes. Today counts. One honest prayer counts. One small act of obedience counts.

This week’s series works through it slowly - habits, thoughts, desire, pride, delay, injustice, and where real strength comes from.

You can watch the whole series on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEllo9AZ2Hu8

Grace and peace.
Rob

You may have sent the message, made the call, or offered an apology. You waited, but nothing changed. After a while, sorrow can turn into blame. You begin to wonder whether the silence is your fault.

Romans 12:18 offers a gentler way forward:

“Do all that you can to live in peace with everyone.”

Those words do not make you responsible for every outcome. They ask you to be faithful with the part that belongs to you.

You can unlock your side of the door. You cannot make another person walk through it. You can speak with kindness, admit where you were wrong, pray, and leave room for a future conversation. You cannot control the other person’s answer.

This matters at home, where old hurts can shape family life. It matters at work or college, where one hard exchange can grow into lasting distance. It also matters in our corps and churches. We can worship in the same room while carefully avoiding one another.

Ask God one simple question today: “What is still mine to do?”

Perhaps you need to send a brief message without expecting a reply. Perhaps you need to apologise without defending yourself. Perhaps you have already done what you can, and your next faithful step is to release the outcome in prayer.

An unresolved relationship is not always a failure you must fix. Sometimes it is a sorrow you are allowed to grieve.

You are not the peacekeeper of the universe. You are a child of God, called to do your part. The rest belongs to him, and he will hold it with far more grace than you can.

Watch the five-minute devotional here -

Most of us know that moment. We have been hurt, ignored, or treated unfairly. Anger tells us that we must answer now. If we wait, it says, we will look weak. Yet haste can turn a real wrong into a second wrong.

David faced that danger in 1 Samuel 25. Nabal had insulted him after David’s men had protected Nabal’s shepherds. David gathered 400 men and set out for revenge. Abigail heard what had happened and moved quickly. She brought food, spoke with care, and stood between David and a choice that would have marked his life.

David needed someone brave enough to interrupt him.

We do too.

Romans 12:19 calls us to leave revenge with God. That does not mean pretending that the hurt does not matter. It means trusting that God sees the whole case and will judge with wisdom. We can hand him our anger before it becomes an action we cannot recall.

Who is allowed to interrupt you? It may be a spouse, friend, colleague, corps leader, or wise neighbour. Choose that person before anger rises. Give them permission to say, “Sleep on it.” Then listen when they do.

There is also a second call here. Be an Abigail for someone else. Bring calm, not a lecture. Ask a kind question. Offer food or a cup of tea. Help them gain enough time to choose what is right.

The sharp email can stay in drafts. The message can wait until morning. Morning often edits more wisely than anger.

You do not have to carry the case alone. Hand it to God. Welcome the friend who helps you pause, and become that friend for someone else.

Begin today, gently.

Watch the five-minute devotional here -

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So, you wait. Another day passes. The silence may begin to look like a lack of care, even though it began with fear.

Romans 12:15 gives us a simpler way: “Be happy with those who are happy, and weep with those who weep”. Paul does not tell us to explain another person’s pain. He does not ask us to fix it. He asks us to enter it with them.

Job’s friends understood this at first. When they saw the depth of his suffering, they sat on the ground beside him for seven days. They did not speak because his grief was too great for words. Their later advice caused harm, but their first response was full of care. They came. They sat down. They stayed.

We often speak because silence makes us feel helpless. Yet the person before us may not need an answer. They may need someone who will not rush away when grief feels awkward or heavy.

This is especially true months after a loss. At first, cards arrive, friends call, and people offer help. Then most lives return to normal. The grieving person’s life does not. Late grief can feel very lonely.

Think of one person who may need your presence today. Send a simple message: “I’m thinking of you. You don’t need to reply”. Offer a coffee, make a call, or sit beside them without trying to improve the moment.

Weeping with those who weep is not about finding perfect words. It is a decision to stay.

Watch the five-minute devotional here:

You are getting on with your day, then you think of them. Your shoulders tense. Your chest tightens. You remember what they said, what they did, or what they failed to do.

Romans 12:20 gives us a difficult response. If an enemy is hungry, we are to feed them. If they are thirsty, we are to give them something to drink.

This is more than avoiding revenge. It is active goodness.

We see it lived out in 2 Kings 6. An enemy army falls into Israel’s hands. The king expects permission to kill them. Instead, Elisha tells him to give them food and water. Israel prepares a feast, and the soldiers return home.

A meal reaches somewhere an argument cannot.

This does not mean that we ignore harm. Wise boundaries may still be needed. Forgiveness does not make unsafe conduct safe. Yet boundaries need not stop us from asking what one good action might look like.

We often wait until our feelings change. We tell ourselves that we will act with kindness once we feel calm, warm, or forgiving. Scripture puts the action first.

Goodness is a choice long before it is an emotion.

That choice may be very small. You might send a kind message. You might speak well of someone at work. You might add their name to your prayer list. You may simply refuse to return hurt for hurt.

You are not using kindness as a way to control or change them. You are placing your own heart in God’s hands.

Think of one difficult person today. What is one quiet, good thing you could do?

You do not need to repair the whole relationship today. Just take the next faithful step.

Watch the five-minute devotional -

We tell people, “You must come round sometime”. Yet “sometime” can drift further away. The washing is still out. The sink is still full. The post is still sitting on the stairs. We keep waiting for a better day.

The woman in 2 Kings 4 did something different. She noticed that Elisha often passed her home. Then she prepared a small room for him. It held a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp. There was no luxury. There was simply enough.

More than that, she prepared the room before he needed it.

That small detail challenges me. Much of our kindness comes as a response to a crisis. Someone is struggling, so we rush to help. That matters. Yet this woman chose kindness on an ordinary day, when nobody was watching and no emergency demanded her care.

What might that look like for us?

It could mean clearing a chair before inviting a friend round. It could mean keeping some food ready to share. It could mean leaving space in our week for someone who may need to talk. At our corps or church, it might mean noticing the person who stands alone and choosing to sit beside them.

Hospitality does not begin with an impressive house. It begins with a willing heart.

As I say in today’s devotional, “You’re not being asked to be impressive. You’re being asked to be ready”.

We make room because Christ has already made room for us. We are already loved, welcomed, and at home in him. Our welcome becomes a small echo of his.

What is one small thing you could prepare today?

Watch the five-minute devotional on YouTube -