Have you ever said something sharp and immediately wished you could take it back?

Maybe the words came out harder than you meant. Maybe you watched someone’s face change and thought - where did that even come from?

Here’s what I’ve been sitting with this week, and it’s a little unsettling, if I’m honest.

Those words didn’t arrive out of nowhere. By the time they left your lips, they’d already been forming quietly inside you. Turned over. Felt. Let harden into something that started to feel like fact. What we say to people is almost always something we’ve rehearsed inwardly - long before they ever heard it.

The psalmist saw this clearly. In Psalm 19:14, he prays, “May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing to you, O Lord.” He links the mouth and the heart in one breath. Because the two were never really separate.

Proverbs is blunter still. Foolish words trap the one who speaks them. But the answer isn’t try harder to speak more carefully. God’s invitation goes somewhere deeper than that. It’s this:

Let me into the room where the thoughts are formed.

That’s the honest and hopeful thing. God isn’t asking for better speech. He’s asking for the whole inner room - thoughts, stories, and the things we’ve quietly let harden without quite noticing.

I explore this gently in today’s five-minute devotional, including one small prayer to try before your next difficult conversation.

Watch today’s devotional here →

See you tomorrow.

Rob

Read this week’s devotionals here - https://open.substack.com/pub/battledrilldevotional/p/who-are-you-living-for-romans-6-daily?r=643q6o&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Before you read another word - just look at your hands for a moment.

Maybe they’re wrapped around a mug. Maybe they’re swiping through your phone. Maybe they’re already tired from a morning of doing more than anyone around you noticed.

Here’s what I keep coming back to this week. Our hands drift. Almost without us noticing, they go first toward comfort - toward whatever makes the moment a little easier to get through. That’s not a moral catastrophe. It’s just the honest truth about us. But James 4:8 gently points out that when that’s all our hands ever serve, something in us gets a little out of alignment.

And here’s what Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 4:11 that I think changes everything. He tells us to make it our goal to live a quiet life and to work with our own hands. Most of us read that as basic practical advice. But he means something far bigger. He’s saying that the everyday, unglamorous, barely-noticed work of your hands is a holy calling - a spiritual act, not a distraction from your faith.

The email written with care when you could have rushed it. The meal made with a little more attention. The quiet repair done when no one’s watching.

These are not interruptions to your spiritual life. They are your spiritual life.

I explore this in today’s five-minute devotional - Day 4 of the Battle Drill series on Romans 6:13. I’d love you to watch it here:

See you tomorrow.

Rob

Read this week’s devotionals here - https://open.substack.com/pub/battledrilldevotional/p/who-are-you-living-for-romans-6-daily?r=643q6o&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Here’s something I noticed this week - and I suspect you’ll recognise it too.

You pick up your phone just for a second. Maybe to check the time. And then, before you’ve quite decided to, a few minutes have passed. And somewhere in those few minutes, something quietly shifts inside you. A flicker of comparison. Someone else’s life looking a bit brighter, a bit more sorted, a bit further along than yours. A restlessness you didn’t have before you looked.

It’s not dramatic. It’s just quiet. And it happens to all of us.

This week in our daily devotionals, we’re working through Romans 6 and what it means to offer every part of ourselves to God - including our eyes. And this is where things get genuinely interesting, because the Bible traces this struggle right back to Genesis 3. The fall of humanity didn’t begin with a grand act of rebellion. It began with a look. She saw, she wanted, she took.

Our eyes don’t just observe. They orient us. What we fix our gaze on quietly shapes what we long for, what we move towards, what we reach for.

So what do we do about it?

Not a strategy. Not a self-improvement plan. A prayer. Just 11 words from Psalm 119:18: “Open my eyes to see the wonderful truths in your instructions.”

That prayer doesn’t ask us to try harder. It says: I cannot do this without you. And honestly, that’s not weakness. That’s wisdom.

I’d love you to watch today’s full devotional - it’s just five minutes, and there’s a very practical one-step challenge at the end that I think might genuinely change how your day starts.

Watch it here -

See you tomorrow, Rob

Read this week’s devotionals here - https://open.substack.com/pub/battledrilldevotional/p/who-are-you-living-for-romans-6-daily?r=643q6o&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Have you ever had one of those moments where you were quite sure you’d moved past something - and then, out of nowhere, there it was again?

An old reaction. A familiar feeling you didn’t miss. A pattern you thought had gone for good.

It can feel discouraging. Like proof that nothing has really changed.

I want to offer you something better than that today.

Paul wrote to a group of ordinary Christians in Colossi, and he didn’t give them a pep talk. He used surgical language. He said God performed a spiritual circumcision - a cutting away of the sinful nature. And then he said something even more striking: you were buried with Christ and raised to new life.

Not improved. Raised.

In Romans 6, he puts it plainly: our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ. Past tense. Done. Settled.

So here’s what that means for the moments when the old patterns pull. You are not dealing with who you are. You are dealing with the ghost of who you were.

Your new identity in Christ isn’t a goal you’re still working towards. It’s already yours. The old labels - the angry one, the one who gives up, the one who can’t be trusted - those were sewn onto someone who went into the ground with Jesus and didn’t come back.

Next time an old pattern surfaces, try saying this quietly: that’s not me anymore. Not as wishful thinking. As a statement of truth.

Today’s devotional explores all of this in five minutes - and ends with a simple step you can take today.

👉 Watch here:

Grace and peace.

Rob

Read this week’s devotionals here - https://open.substack.com/pub/battledrilldevotional/p/who-are-you-living-for-romans-6-daily?r=643q6o&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Can I ask you something personal?

Before your feet touched the floor this morning, was something already waiting for you? A memory. A mistake. That thing you said, or did, or failed to do. It might be years old. It might be from last night. But there it is - sitting on your chest before the day has even begun.

If you know that feeling, you are not alone. And I think today’s reading is for you.

I have been sitting with Micah 7:19 this week. It is not one of those verses people cross-stitch onto cushions. But it stopped me cold. “You will trample our sins under your feet and throw them into the depths of the ocean.”

Notice what God doesn’t do. He doesn’t reluctantly hand out a pardon and tell you to move along. He tramples. He hurls. He throws them into the deepest place imaginable - where, in the ancient world, nothing ever came back from.

That is not a grudging God. That is a joyful, decisive, total act of grace.

And Paul writes in Romans 6 that we have died to sin. Past tense. Finished. The battle you wake up to fight every morning? God won it before you opened your eyes.

So here is the honest question worth sitting with today: if the battle is already won, why are we still dragging ourselves back into it?

This is Day 1 of a new series on living from that freedom - not just believing it, but actually starting the day from grace.

Even if you only take one thing from today, try saying this out loud before the noise begins:

“God has thrown my sins into the sea. I start today from grace.”

That’s not a programme. It’s not a resolution. It’s just a small act of faith - choosing to receive what God has already done.

The full five-minute video is here if you’d like to watch it. But either way, I’m glad you’re here.

See you tomorrow.

Rob

▶️ Watch today’s devotional on YouTube:

Read this week’s devotionals here - https://open.substack.com/pub/battledrilldevotional/p/who-are-you-living-for-romans-6-daily?r=643q6o&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Can I ask you something honestly?

Is there something you keep doing - or keep not doing - that you genuinely wish you could change? Maybe it’s the way you speak to the people closest to you. The things your eyes drift toward when no one is watching. The habits that run on autopilot no matter how many times you decide that this time will be different.

You are not alone in that. Not at all.

This week on Battle Drill, we are spending seven days in one of the most honest and hopeful chapters in the whole Bible - Romans 6. And what Paul says there is genuinely surprising. He does not start with a to-do list. He does not tell you to try harder or want it more.

He starts with what God has already done.

He tells us that sin’s grip - that pull toward the things that diminish us - has been broken. Not weakened. Broken. And because of that, we are not the people we were. We have a new nature and a new starting point.

Each day this week we look at a different part of the body - eyes, hands, mouths, and legs - and ask one simple question: what is this being offered to? And can that change?

We finish the week with something that might just catch you off guard - the truth that the freedom God offers is not something you earn, but something you receive.

The videos are short, free, and waiting for you on YouTube. I would love to spend this week with you.

Rob

Watch the full series here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRCAfiHehjUlG4b9GbH78QKBgbb_DZSYe

Download This Week's Devotionals

You know when you miss a turning, and instead of a dramatic beep and a little lecture, it just quietly says - “turn left in 200 yards”? No drama. No shame. Just the next direction, calm and close and steady.

I think that’s an honest picture of how God guides us.

We sometimes expect spiritual growth to feel like a final arrival. Like one morning we’ll wake up and think - right, I’ve got this sorted. But the longer I walk with Jesus, the more I notice that growth doesn’t look like a destination. It looks like direction. One small yes at a time.

There’s a verse in Isaiah that I don’t think gets nearly enough attention. Chapter 30, verse 21. God is speaking to a people who’ve wandered, who’ve lost their footing, who are trying to find their way again. And here’s what he says:

“Your own ears will hear him right behind you. A voice will say, this is the way you should go, whether to the right or to the left.”

Right behind you. Not distant. Not demanding. Just close, faithful, and pointing forward.

The spirit-filled life is always a growing life. Not a comfortable, settled, arrived life. A life that keeps saying - Lord, I’m still listening.

So here’s your one small step for today. Ask God this: Lord, what else?

Not what am I getting wrong. Not what do I have to do. Just - what else? Thirty seconds and a willing heart. That’s all it takes.

The full devotional is on YouTube - link below. I hope it encourages you today.

Keep pressing on. The voice is right behind you.

Rob x

▶️ Watch the full devotional here:

Read this week’s devotionals here - https://open.substack.com/pub/battledrilldevotional/p/you-might-already-be-a-leader-heres?r=643q6o&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Can I ask you something honest?

Have you ever been in a room full of people - a workplace, a church, even a family gathering - and still felt quietly alone? Not dramatically lonely. Just... not quite known.

I think more of us feel that than we’re willing to say out loud.

This week I’ve been sitting with the early church in Acts chapter two. It’s a beautiful picture - people sharing meals in each other’s homes, giving generously, gathering day after day with real warmth and joy. It makes you feel something just reading it.

But here’s what struck me this time around. That community didn’t appear out of nowhere. It was built slowly, quietly, one act of courage at a time. Somebody had to open the door first. Somebody had to say, “Come in. You belong here.”

And the writer of Hebrews understood that too. He urged his readers to think, motivate, encourage - active, chosen words. Community, he knew, is something you help to build. Not something that just happens to you.

So today’s devotional offers three simple truths about what can happen when just one person says yes. You don’t need a programme or a grand plan. You just need the next step.

A message. An invitation. A cup of tea. One yes.

That’s how it begins.

I hope it’s an encouragement to you today. Watch the full devotional here - it’s just five minutes, and there’s a prayer at the end I think you’ll want to sit with.

👉

With warmth.

Rob

Read this week’s devotionals here - https://open.substack.com/pub/battledrilldevotional/p/you-might-already-be-a-leader-heres?r=643q6o&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Think for a moment about the most genuinely impressive leader you’ve ever known.

Not the loudest voice in the room. Not the one who always had to have the last word. I mean the one who made you feel like you could do anything. The one who stepped aside and gave you room to grow. The one who, when something went well, made sure you got the credit - even when they’d done most of the work.

What made them so impressive was probably how little they seemed to need the spotlight.

This week I’ve been sitting with Luke 22:27. It’s the night before the crucifixion. The disciples are gathered around the table for the Last Supper - and somehow, even then, they’re squabbling about who amongst them is the greatest. I find that oddly comforting. If they could miss the point so completely on that night, there’s hope for every one of us.

Jesus’ response is just one quiet sentence: “I am among you as one who serves.”

Not as the one in charge. Not as the one you should all be thanking. As a servant.

In today’s 5-minute devotional, I look at three things that moment is teaching us - about posture, about strength, and about what happens when we choose to let someone else lead.

There’s also a practical step for your next 24 hours - something small, quiet, and surprisingly freeing.

You can watch it here:

See you tomorrow.

Rob

Read this week’s devotionals here - https://open.substack.com/pub/battledrilldevotional/p/you-might-already-be-a-leader-heres?r=643q6o&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

It’s the feeling that real life - meaningful life - is happening somewhere else. Somewhere you haven’t quite managed to reach yet.

I felt it again this week. And then I sat with Acts 17:26-27.

Paul is standing in Athens, surrounded by philosophers and clever people with very loud opinions. And he says something quietly extraordinary. He tells the crowd that God determined the times and the exact places where they should live. Not allowed. Not permitted. Determined. Set. Placed.

Your kitchen. Your commute. Your school gate. Your break room at work. Paul says these aren’t accidental. They’re on purpose - deliberately chosen, with you in mind - so that the people around you might reach out and find God for themselves.

Brother Lawrence, a 17th-century monk who spent his whole life peeling vegetables and washing pots, wrote something that has stayed with the church for four centuries: that God regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it’s performed.

The ordinary is the work. The placement is the mission.

I’m offering one very small step in today’s devotional - something you can say as you walk into any room this week. It’s short, honest, and entirely doable.

You’re not waiting for life to begin. You’re in it right now.

👉 Watch today’s five-minute devotional here:

With you in the ordinary.

Rob

Read this week’s devotionals here - https://open.substack.com/pub/battledrilldevotional/p/you-might-already-be-a-leader-heres?r=643q6o&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

There’s something most of us carry quietly. Not loudly, not dramatically - just quietly. A failure. A season we’d give anything to undo. A relationship that slipped through our fingers before we knew what was happening.

At some point, without quite deciding to, we made a kind of peace with it. Not real peace. More like resignation. We told ourselves: that’s just the bit I don’t talk about now.

I want to offer you something today from the book of Joel - a short, ancient text written to people whose lives had been stripped bare. A plague of locusts had eaten everything. Their harvests were gone. Years of careful work, all of it taken.

And into that hollowness, God speaks.

“I will give you back what you lost to the swarming locusts.” - Joel 2:25

Not: I’ll forgive it and we’ll put it behind us. Give it back. That’s a completely different kind of promise.

There are three things in today’s devotional I think are worth sitting with. First, God names the devastation - he doesn’t gloss over it or tidy it up. Second, he promises restoration, not just forgiveness. And third - and this is the one that still catches me - the most broken place in your life might become the brightest.

I’m not asking you to fix anything today. Just to open the door a crack.

The full 5-minute video is here:

See you tomorrow.

Rob

Read this week’s devotionals here - https://open.substack.com/pub/battledrilldevotional/p/you-might-already-be-a-leader-heres?r=643q6o&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Maybe it was a relationship where the same argument keeps surfacing. A habit you’ve been chipping away at for years. A fear that still has a hold on you, no matter how many times you’ve talked yourself through it.

You set your jaw. You try harder. And for a while, maybe it even works. But sooner or later, the old version of you shows up again - a bit tired, a bit frayed, but exactly the same.

I’ve been there. I think most of us have.

In today’s devotional, I wanted to talk about something I think a lot of us are getting subtly wrong. We’ve been working far too hard at something we were never supposed to carry alone - and the cost of that has been quietly convincing us that we’re somehow disqualified.

So I went back to a promise in Ezekiel 36 - one that came centuries before Pentecost - and it stopped me in my tracks. God doesn’t say try harder. He doesn’t say sort yourself out. He says: I will give you a new heart. I will put my spirit in you.

That’s not self-improvement. That’s transformation.

The difference between the old Peter and the new Peter wasn’t willpower. It was whose power.

And that changes everything.

I think today’s five-minute video might be one of the most practically useful ones I’ve put out in this series. If you’ve been exhausted from trying to change in your own strength, this one’s for you.

👉 Watch it here:

See you tomorrow.

Rob

Read this week’s devotionals here - https://open.substack.com/pub/battledrilldevotional/p/you-might-already-be-a-leader-heres?r=643q6o&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

You know those people - and maybe you’re one of them - who somehow become the person that others ring when things go wrong. Not because they put themselves forwards. Not because they have the best job title or the most impressive CV. Just because they’re the sort of person who makes the tea, listens well, and somehow - by the time the call ends - makes the world feel a little less impossible.

Nobody hands that person a certificate. Nobody stands up and announces them. It just... happens.

And here’s what struck me when I was reading Numbers 11 this week. Two men - Eldad and Medad - never made it to the official meeting. No credentials. No formal commissioning. And yet the Holy Spirit moved through them anyway, right there in the middle of the everyday crowd. When Joshua told Moses to shut it down, Moses said something extraordinary: “I wish that all the Lord’s people were prophets.”

He threw the door open rather than guarding the threshold.

I think a lot of us are walking around unaware that God has been shaping something in us - quietly, steadily, without any fanfare - that is already a form of leadership and calling. The people around us often already know it. We’re the last to see it.

Today’s devotional unpacks that idea in about five minutes. It ends with one small, honest question to sit with over a cup of tea.

I’d love for you to watch it here:

And I’d love even more to hear what you think.

Rob

Read this week’s devotionals here - https://open.substack.com/pub/battledrilldevotional/p/you-might-already-be-a-leader-heres?r=643q6o&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Can I be honest with you about something?

When most of us hear the word “leader,” we picture someone else. Someone more confident, more capable, more put-together. Someone at the front. Someone with a title.

I’ve been sitting with that assumption this week - and I think it might be costing us something.

Here’s what I’ve come to believe: leadership isn’t a position you’re given. It’s a way of being that grows in you - quietly, in ordinary places, through ordinary days. It shows up in the colleague who is steady when everyone else is panicking. In the parent who keeps showing up even when it’s hard. In the neighbour who actually stops and listens.

The question isn’t really “am I a leader?” The real question is: am I willing to let the person I’m becoming show up - honestly, humbly, hopefully - in the places I’ve been put?

This week, I’m exploring that question across seven short daily devotionals. Each one takes a single idea and sits with it. We’ll look at what it means to lead without a title, what the Holy Spirit does that willpower simply can’t, why your failures might be your greatest qualification, and what happens when one ordinary person says yes.

You don’t need to feel ready. You don’t need a track record.

You just need to be willing to take the next step.

The full series is live on YouTube now - I’d love you to join me there.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRCAfiHehjUkesu1qa4Wel9u0pxdrXHfn

Rob

Download This Week's Devotionals

Think of someone who changed your life. Maybe a teacher who believed in you before you believed in yourself. A friend who sat with you through a really dark night. Someone who showed you - quietly, without making a fuss - what it looks like to keep going when everything feels impossible.

Now here’s the harder question: did you ever find yourself doing the same thing for someone else?

That’s what I mean when I say forgiveness keeps moving. When it’s truly done its work in us, it doesn’t settle and stay still. It finds someone else.

Today we looked at 1 Peter 5:1-2 - and what struck me all over again is the way Peter opens it. Not as the chief apostle. Not with authority or rank. He says: as a fellow elder. As someone in it with you. As a man who received something extraordinary on a beach at sunrise, and spent the rest of his life quietly passing it on.

The practical step for today is beautifully small. Think of someone in your world who needs to be noticed - not fixed, not lectured, just noticed. Send them a voice note. Make them a cup of tea. Say: I’ve been thinking about you.

That’s feeding a sheep. It doesn’t have to be grand. It just has to be willing.

You can watch the full 5-minute devotional here:

See you tomorrow.

Rob

Read this week’s devotionals here - https://open.substack.com/pub/battledrilldevotional/p/have-you-ever-felt-like-youve-blown?r=643q6o&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

It’s a single Greek word. Two syllables. And John only uses it twice in his entire gospel.

The first time, it describes the fire Peter was standing at when he said, three times, “I do not know the man.” The cold courtyard. The worst night of his life.

The second time? It’s the fire Jesus has already lit on the beach in chapter 21 - warming, waiting, breakfast ready - when Peter and the disciples drag their nets in after a long, empty night.

John is a careful writer. He doesn’t repeat unusual words by accident. So this is no coincidence.

Jesus didn’t choose a neutral spot for this reunion. He chose a charcoal fire. The same kind. The same word. A deliberate echo of the very moment Peter had been trying to forget.

Not to shame him. Not to say, “Remember what you did?”

But to say something far more powerful: I know exactly where you fell, and I have come to that exact place to find you.

Forgiveness, it turns out, doesn’t arrive from a safe distance. It walks into the very ground of your failure and sits down beside you in it.

George Matheson put it beautifully: “O joy that seekest me through pain.” Not around it. Not after it’s tidied away. Through it.

Is there a place or a memory you’ve been quietly walking around the edge of? Jesus was there before you arrived. The fire is already burning.

👉 Watch the full five-minute devotional here:

With you in it.

Rob

Read this week’s devotionals here - https://open.substack.com/pub/battledrilldevotional/p/have-you-ever-felt-like-youve-blown?r=643q6o&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

When someone asks how you’re doing, what do you actually say? Most of us, without really thinking, reach for a list. Busy. Keeping on top of things. You know how it is. We measure ourselves by our output. By what we’ve managed. By what we haven’t dropped yet.

Peter knew that feeling. After three years of drawing swords and making bold promises and pushing to the front, he failed in the worst way possible - three cold denials by a courtyard fire. And then he quietly slipped back to his old life, his old boat, his old job, as if none of it had happened.

And Jesus came and found him on a beach. Breakfast already cooking.

He didn’t ask Peter what he’d done wrong. He didn’t ask what he planned to do differently. He asked one question: Do you love me?

Three times he asked it. Once for each denial.

Here’s the thing I keep coming back to: Jesus already knew the answer. He wasn’t running a performance review. He wasn’t checking whether Peter had earned his way back. He was doing something kinder and stranger than that - he was drawing the love that was already there out into the open, where it could breathe and be put to work.

Love first. Everything else flows from that.

That’s the reset. And it’s being offered to you today too.

Today’s devotional on John 21:15 unpacks this in about five minutes - including a tiny, practical step you can take before the day is over. I think it might be just what you need.

👉 Watch it here:

With you on the journey.

Rob

Read this week’s devotionals here - https://open.substack.com/pub/battledrilldevotional/p/have-you-ever-felt-like-youve-blown?r=643q6o&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

There is something quietly relentless about guilt. It doesn’t just arrive once. It comes back a specific number of times. Three times you had the chance. Three times you didn’t take it. And that number sits somewhere inside you, not loud - just there.

I’ve been thinking about Peter this week.

You know the story. Three times around a charcoal fire in the courtyard, he said he didn’t know Jesus. Three times he walked a little further from the person he loved most.

And then - after the resurrection - Jesus meets him on a beach. And he doesn’t offer a warm, vague “all is forgiven.” He asks Peter a question three times. Same number. Same fire. John tells us it was a charcoal fire that morning, and the only other charcoal fire in the whole gospel is the one in the courtyard where Peter fell. John isn’t being clumsy. He’s being deliberate.

Jesus brings Peter back to the fire - not to humiliate him, but to heal him.

Three denials. Three questions. The maths of grace.

What strikes me most is that God doesn’t erase the past. He redeems it. He walks back into it with us and turns it into something new.

There’s a moment in today’s devotional where I invite you to do something simple - just name the specific thing you carry. Not fix it. Just name it. And let him meet you there.

That’s enough.

I’d love for you to watch the full video here:

With you by the fire.

Rob

Read this week’s devotionals here - https://open.substack.com/pub/battledrilldevotional/p/have-you-ever-felt-like-youve-blown?r=643q6o&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Peter, swimming to shore after the worst few days of his life. He had denied Jesus three times, looked him in the eye and said he didn’t know him, then watched from a distance as Jesus died. And now Jesus was alive - and Peter had to face him.

I imagine he was rehearsing what he’d say. Bracing himself for the look on Jesus’ face.

What he got was the smell of fish on a charcoal fire and a voice calling over the water.

“Come and have breakfast.”

No lecture. No “we need to talk.” No careful, serious opening about everything that had gone so badly wrong. Just warmth, food, and presence.

And here’s what struck me most this week: God does this twice in Scripture. Centuries before, Elijah collapsed under a broom tree in the desert and told God he just wanted to die. What was God’s first response? Not a rebuke. Not even a word of comfort. An angel brought fresh bread and a jar of water.

“Get up and eat. The journey ahead will be too much for you.”

Before the still small voice on the mountain. Before any commission or calling. He made sure Elijah had enough strength to stand.

The pattern is identical. Before the hard question, before the conversation they are dreading, he feeds his broken friend first.

I think most of us expect God to lead with a serious conversation about everything we’ve got wrong. What he leads with is care.

And the invitation in that - for us, today - is a simple one. Before you say the wise thing, do the small thing. Make the tea. Drop the meal round. Send the message with no agenda attached. Just: I’m thinking of you.

That is not a small thing. That is a profound act of grace.

If you’d like to sit with this for five minutes, today’s full devotional is on YouTube here:

Until tomorrow.

Rob

Read this week’s devotionals here - https://open.substack.com/pub/battledrilldevotional/p/have-you-ever-felt-like-youve-blown?r=643q6o&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

What if your biggest spiritual problem right now isn’t that you’re doing something terrible - but that you’ve put something good in the wrong place?

I know. It’s not the framing we expect. We tend to imagine sin as a list of obvious things. But most of us aren’t living scandalous lives. We’re just busy. We mean to pray, but the morning disappears. We love our families, but work creeps in at the edges. We pick up our phones before we pick up anything else.

That quiet drift has a name in the Bible. And it doesn’t come from one of the famous books.

This week I’ve been in Haggai - all two chapters of it. It was written for people who were, by most measures, doing fine. They had homes, crops, wages, plans. Good, ordinary things. But God’s house was in ruins, and somehow nobody seemed particularly bothered.

God’s response wasn’t condemnation. It was closer to a gentle question: Does this actually feel like it’s working?

Augustine put it in one sentence that’s stayed with me for years: “Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it repose in thee.”

When something other than God sits at the centre - even something genuinely good - everything feels faintly hollow as a result.

I explore this in today’s devotional. It’s about five minutes. And it ends with just one honest question to carry through your day.

Watch here:

With you in the drift.

Rob

Read this week’s devotionals here - https://open.substack.com/pub/battledrilldevotional/p/have-you-ever-felt-like-youve-blown?r=643q6o&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true