Five words for when you've already tried everything
Dear friend.
Have you ever been asked to do something that felt completely pointless?
Not something hard. Not something scary. Just something where you already knew how it was going to end - because you’d already been through it.
That’s exactly where Peter found himself in Luke chapter five. He’s a professional fisherman. He’s been out all night. He’s caught nothing. And now Jesus - a carpenter, not a fisherman - is standing in his boat telling him to go back out and try again.
What Peter says next is one of the most quietly powerful sentences in the whole of the Gospels.
“Master, we worked hard all last night and didn’t catch a thing. But if you say so, I’ll let the nets down again.”
Five words buried inside that sentence: but if you say so.
He doesn’t say them with great confidence. He doesn’t leap out of the boat full of enthusiasm. He says them tired. He says them when the logic doesn’t add up. He says them before he can see the outcome.
And I think that’s why they’re so powerful.
Real faith rarely feels like certainty. More often it sounds like a quiet exhale - a whispered yes in the middle of doubt. And in today’s devotional, I explore why that’s not weakness. It might just be one of the bravest things a person can do.
I also look at the moment Mary said something very similar - before the very first miracle Jesus ever performed - and why the shift from trusting a plan to trusting a person changes everything.
If you’re in a season where something isn’t making sense, I hope today’s reflection gives you a little courage.
▶️ Watch the full devotional here:
See you tomorrow.
Rob
Read this week’s devotionals here - https://open.substack.com/pub/battledrilldevotional/p/what-if-ordinary-is-exactly-enough?r=643q6o&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true