When there's nothing left in the tank
Dear friend.
Can I ask you something honest? Have you given everything you had lately - to your family, your job, your caring responsibilities, your community - and reached inside for just a little bit more, only to find there’s nothing there?
That hollow feeling has a name. And I think more of us carry it than we ever admit out loud.
I’ve been sitting with a quiet moment from John 20 this week. It’s Easter Sunday evening. The disciples are locked inside, frightened and uncertain. And Jesus - risen, real, alive - appears in the room. He doesn’t give them a to-do list. He doesn’t say, “I told you so.” He breathes on them. “Receive the Holy Spirit.”
It’s such a gentle moment. But the weight of it is extraordinary.
That same breath goes all the way back to Genesis 2, when God breathed into dust and a human being came alive. It echoes through Ezekiel 37, where a valley of dry bones became a living people. And now, in that locked room, the same breath is offered again - to exhausted, frightened, depleted people.
Not because they’d earned it. Not because they’d figured it out. Just because he loved them. And he loves you.
Three things land with me from this passage. Resurrection is recreation - a brand new beginning for the whole of creation. God specialises in dead places - he doesn’t wait for you to tidy yourself up first. And the Spirit is a gift, not a reward - you receive him with open hands, not striving.
Wherever you are today - on the school run, at work, at home exhausted - this is for you.
👉 Watch the full 7-minute devotional here:
Take care of yourself, Rob
Read this week’s devotionals here - https://open.substack.com/pub/battledrilldevotional/p/when-doubt-feels-like-the-wrong-answer?r=643q6o&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true