The Quill and Me—Devotional Blog•Oswald Chambers Reflections

The Quill and Me—Devotional Blog•Oswald Chambers Reflections Today's Devotional • Back to Home Page May 23  Today's Reading: My Utmost for His Highest Matthew 6:25  "... do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on" Our Unbelief Learning to Put God First in a World Full of Distractions Today Chambers digs deeper into the personal places of our lives — but truly, it is the Lord Jesus Himself who is doing the digging. Matthew 6:25 is part of the Sermon on the Mount, and Chambers reminds us: Do not take the pressure of your provision upon yourself. We are not meant to carry the weight of our own needs. We are not meant to worry about the practical details of our lives. We are meant to seek first the Kingdom of God — to put Him first in everything. Before you buy a new book… Before you plan a vacation… Before you make any decision at all… Put God first. Seek His approval. Seek His guidance. He m...

The Quill and Me—Devotional Blog•Oswald Chambers Reflections Today's Devotional • Back to Home Page Bible Verse John 16:30-31 " 'By this we believe....' Jesus answered them, 'Do you now believe?' "  Reflection There are moments when we think we are following Jesus closely, only to have His question reveal how easily our confidence rests on ourselves rather than on Him. The disciples said, “Now we believe,” and Jesus answered with a question that reaches straight into us: “Do you now believe?” Not to shame them, but to reveal how quickly even devoted hearts drift into serving Him without actually depending on Him. Chambers names the quiet danger: we begin to lean on our own religious understanding. We make decisions out of habit, instinct, or duty, and then ask God to bless what we have already chosen. We speak for Him without listening to Him. We work for Him without walking with Him. And we do not notice the drift until our soul grows restless, our streng...

The Quill and Me—Devotional Blog•Oswald Chambers Reflections Today's Devotional • Back to Home Page Bible Verse John 4:11 "Where then do You get that living water?" Reflection The well in us is always deeper than we admit. Chambers names it plainly: the hurt, the fear, the long‑standing ache we have learned to manage on our own. We look at Jesus and quietly assume He can comfort us, but not change us; He can soothe us, but not reach the places we have sealed off. Yet His ministry is never drawn from our depths—it is poured down from His. The poverty is not in His power but in our expectation. When we decide in advance what God “can’t” do, we close the door He is standing ready to walk through. The Samaritan woman thought the well was the problem; Jesus knew the well was the place where revelation would happen. Our incompleteness is not a barrier to Him—it is the very place where His fullness longs to descend. The invitation is simple and costly: stop drawing from your own...

The Quill and Me—Devotional Blog•Oswald Chambers Reflections Today's Devotional • Back to Home Page Bible Verse John 4:11 "The woman said to Him, 'Sir, You have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep' " Reflection There is a moment in John 4 when the woman at the well looks at Jesus and essentially says, “You don’t have what it takes to meet my need.” It sounds blunt when we hear it that way — but Chambers reminds us that we say the same thing more often than we realize. We love the beauty of Jesus’ words. We admire His promises. We nod at His commands. But when those words press into the real terrain of our lives — bills, loneliness, uncertainty, exhaustion, the ache of being human — something inside us whispers, “Lord, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep.” Our misgivings rarely sound like rebellion. They sound like realism. They sound like self‑protection. They sound like humility — “Oh, I don’t doubt Jesus, I only doubt myself.” But Ch...