The wounds he chose to keep

There’s a detail in the Easter story I used to pass over too quickly.

When Jesus appeared to his disciples in that locked room on Easter Sunday, he didn’t walk in with a brand new, unmarked body. He walked in with the wounds still there - the nail marks in his hands, the scar in his side. And then he showed them.

John tells us this as though it’s the most natural thing in the world. But I’ve been sitting with it this week, and I think it’s one of the most extraordinary moments in the whole story.

Those wounds weren’t a mistake. They weren’t something God forgot to deal with. They were kept on purpose.

And then there’s this line from Isaiah - written centuries before the cross - where God says: “See, I have written your name on the palms of my hands” (Isaiah 49:16). When Isaiah first wrote that, people read it as a lovely metaphor. A way of saying: God doesn’t forget you. You matter to him.

But after Good Friday, those words aren’t a metaphor any more. They’re literal. The hands of Jesus - pierced, marked, scarred - those are the hands with your name on them.

I don’t know what you’re carrying today. But I do know this: God doesn’t ask you to have it all together before he can work in your life. He meets you right here, in the middle of it.

That’s not just a nice idea. That’s the resurrection.

If that stirs something in you, today’s devotional goes deeper - including one small, grounding practice you can try at any point today.

👉 Watch it here:

With you in it, 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