2 Peter 1:5 — “Also… add to your faith…”
Yesterday I realized that I had lived out today's devotional in real time... again God engineered my circumstances so that I experienced today's devotional before I knew about it or wrote about it.
One day a few months ago, I realized… I am living these devotionals day by day! And then just recently, I found this passage in my January 1 devotional where I introduced this book we’re working through, My Utmost for His Highest, and quoted Charles Stanley, who said:
“This volume is not a treasure to be admired but a message to be lived.”
And I wrote: Let’s live it.
Well… I am. Every devotional, every day, I’m experiencing it and writing about it in real time.
Even when I realized that I was living out these devotionals, I did not remember writing that — but there it was in black and white on the first day of this series, the very first devotional reflection of Chambers' work. I had sealed my fate with my own words.
I guess God took me at my word.
And somehow He manages to surprise me every time.
My day had been heavy and so slow. Just plain drudgery. I don’t usually feel that way — I like being busy, doing things around the house — but that day everything felt like a weight. I folded towels and washed dishes and prayed while I did it, but I still felt terrible. Just low and sluggish and not myself.
Somewhere in all that, I realized I needed a better schedule — a better rhythm for my days. I need to form godly habits based on the new life God has put in me. I haven’t really done that yet. Since my surrender to Christ on April 8th, everything in me has changed. I think differently, feel differently, and I’m moving forward differently. My habits need to reflect that. My routine needs to reflect the newness of my life in Christ.
But the part that really stunned me about yesterday was this: At the end of that long, heavy day, I sat down at my computer to work on the next devotional — today's devotional — and the very first sentence was: “In the matter of drudgery.” That was the day I had just lived! A whole day of drudgery. And right then I understood why the day had felt so unusually heavy and slow. I had lived out another devotional without even knowing it ahead of time. It was Him. He had orchestrated my day.
And in that ordinary day, I saw Him.
I realized He was so close that if I could physically see Him or touch Him, I would fall on my face and not be able to function. That’s how near He was to my day. And then it hit me: He is always that near. He has always been right here — closer to me than I am to myself.
God was in the drudgery. He engineered the heaviness so I would learn that not every day is a mountaintop or a valley. Some days are just ordinary — and those days test our character more than anything else. Those are the days when we keep abiding, keep obeying, keep doing the next small thing with diligence.
I saw that God is woven into my very being, and at the same time He is orchestrating the tiniest details of my life. He is not just in me — He is around me, beside me, above me, beneath me. He surrounds me. He carries me. He is everywhere I was, everywhere I am, everywhere I will be. I cannot escape Him — and I don’t want to.
God is in the now.
He is in your yesterday.
He will be in your tomorrow.
He never leaves. He never forsakes. He is here.
I can’t feel Him, can’t see Him, can’t sense Him — but I don’t need to. He has proven Himself to me beyond any doubt. He is with me in the mundane, in the heavy, in the ordinary. And because of that, even the most uneventful day can turn into a revelation.
He proved to me the other day that He was with me when I was seven years old, two years before I was saved and baptized as a believer. He was with me before I accepted Him as my Savior. He saved my life that day, when I seven… so He could show me this and I could know Him.
I will never again doubt His presence.Not on the best day.
Not on the worst day.
Not on a day that feels heavy and slow and full of drudgery.
Not on the most ordinary day.
He is here.
Breath PrayerLord, You are here with me.
I rest in Your presence.
Scripture References
1. 2 Peter 1:5 — “Add to your faith…”
2 Peter 1:5–7 — the full progression of spiritual growth
Philippians 2:12–13 — God works in you as you grow
Colossians 2:6–7 — continue in Him, rooted and built up
2. Living the devotional before writing it
Psalm 32:8 — “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go.”
John 13:7 — “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”
Proverbs 16:9 — He directs your steps even when you don’t see it.
3. God orchestrating my circumstances
Romans 8:28 — He works all things together for good.
Ephesians 2:10 — He prepared good works in advance for you to walk in.
Psalm 139:16 — every day ordained before one came to be.
4. Drudgery, heaviness, and ordinary days
The theme of Chambers' devotional
Colossians 3:23–24 — do everything unto the Lord
1 Corinthians 10:31 — even the mundane is for His glory
Galatians 6:9 — don’t grow weary in doing good
Zechariah 4:10 — “Do not despise the day of small things.”
5. God’s nearness — closer than my own breath
Psalm 139:1–10 — He surrounds you, knows you, hems you in
Acts 17:27–28 — “He is not far from each one of us…
Deuteronomy 31:6 — He will never leave you nor forsake you
Psalm 34:18 — He is near to the brokenhearted
6. God in the mundane, the ordinary, the unnoticed
Revelation in the everyday.
Matthew 6:6 — the Father sees what is done in secret
1 Kings 19:11–12 — God in the gentle whisper, not the dramatic
Psalm 23:1–3 — He leads in ordinary paths
Lamentations 3:22–23 — His mercies are new every morning
7. Forming godly habits and rhythms
My realization that my routine must reflect my new life.
Romans 12:1–2 — transformed by renewing your mind
1 Timothy 4:7 — “train yourself for godliness”
Joshua 1:8 — meditate day and night
Psalm 119:105 — His Word guides your steps
8. God’s presence in my childhood — His hand before salvation
My memory of Him saving my life at age seven.
Jeremiah 1:5 — “Before I formed you… I knew you.”
Psalm 139:13–16 — He saw you before you were born
Psalm 121:7–8 — He watches over your life, your coming and going
Isaiah 46:3–4 — He carries you from birth to old age
9. God’s faithfulness in every kind of day
My declaration: best day, worst day, ordinary day — He is here.
Hebrews 13:8 — Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, forever
Psalm 46:1 — “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help…”
Matthew 28:20 — “I am with you always.”
Psalm 16:8 — “I have set the Lord always before me… He is at my right hand.”
10. Breath Prayer: “Lord, You are here with me. I rest in Your presence.”
This aligns with:
Psalm 62:1 — “My soul finds rest in God alone.”
Exodus 33:14 — “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”
Psalm 46:10 — “Be still, and know that I am God.”
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