Before the Lord

When we pray for the people we love, we usually pray about their circumstances. Paul prayed for something deeper. In this episode, Blake opens Colossians 1:10 — Paul's prayer that the church would walk worthy of the Lord, bear fruit in every good work, and grow in the knowledge of God. These three aren't a checklist to grind through; they're the strands of one life rooted in Christ. Bl...

Do you feel a lack of peace? Jesus promised His followers a peace the world can't give — but it doesn't always fill the room. In this episode, Blake opens Philippians 4:6-8 to show how we learn to receive the peace God has already offered. Paul's counsel comes in two moves: don't be anxious — pray, bringing everything to God with thanksgiving, and His peace will stand guard over yo...

Have you ever lost to someone who cheated to win — who used dishonest means while you played fair and honored the Lord? Blake has, and he calls it a doubly bitter pill. In this episode, he opens Proverbs 21:5-6 to ask how a follower of Jesus is meant to cope when integrity feels like a losing strategy. Dishonest gain, Scripture says, is “a vanishing mist and a deadly trap” — it never satisfies, an...

Since 1998, Blake has started his quiet time with a Proverb — and he's still finding something fresh. This time it was Proverbs 16:17: “The highway of the upright turns aside from evil.” His first reaction was “been there, done that” — until a quiet whisper asked, “Are you sure?” In this short episode, Blake looks past the “big” sins we're proud to avoid and at the little ones we stop noti...

Years ago, in the middle of a long, grinding trial, Blake got two waves of bad news in a single day. That night, God gave him something he's never forgotten — light in the dark, without changing a single circumstance. In this episode, he tells the story of how it came: an ordinary evening, an unexpected nudge, and a line from Henry Blackaby that stopped him cold. Anchored in Matthew 6:10 and B...

Proverbs 7 warns against sexual temptation, but one verse in it diagnoses every temptation we face: “Let not your heart turn aside… do not stray.” In this episode, Blake unpacks two words — heart and stray — to show how temptation actually gets its grip: not on a heart marching into sin, but on one that has quietly drifted from being satisfied in God. Anchored in Proverbs 7:25 and Psalm 107, this...

On the road to Jerusalem, Jesus tells His disciples He's about to die — and two of them respond by asking for the best seats in His kingdom. In this episode, Blake looks past the obvious selfishness to what's really underneath: fear. James and John fled the terrifying present into an imagined future, and in doing so missed the chance to be with Jesus in His pain. Anchored in Mark 10:32-45...

Sometimes we just can't seem to feel close to God — the quiet time goes flat, and everything feels like going through the motions. In this episode, Blake shares three words the Lord pressed on his heart in a season like that: input, output, and throughput — three ways to guard your heart when the distance sets in. Anchored in Proverbs 4:23, this devotional is a practical, watch-your-heart fram...

James says to count it all joy when we face trials. In this episode, Blake hands you a different word for “trial” — disruption — and makes the case that God never wastes one. Life settles into a groove; a disruption breaks it, and often that's exactly where we meet God in a new and deeper way. Anchored in James 1:2-4, this devotional gets personal. Blake shares the hardest disruption of his li...

Years ago in counseling, Blake unloaded a grievance he was sure was justified — and his counselor looked right through him: “Blake, you're a lonely man looking for love in all the wrong places.” In this episode, Blake shares why that hard word landed, and what it revealed about the real mark of a wise person. Anchored in Proverbs 9:8-9, this devotional makes the case that wisdom isn't havi...

The words that come out of us — especially when emotions run high — say more about our hearts than our vocabulary. In this episode, Blake gets honest about a season when the doubt and fear churning inside him turned even his wife's smallest comment into a fight, and what finally changed it. Anchored in James 1:26 and Matthew 15:18, this devotional traces our words back to their source: the hea...

On the night before the cross, in the agony of Gethsemane, Jesus gave His three closest disciples one job: stay awake and pray. Three times He asked; three times they slept. In this episode, Blake looks at why that failure was so tragic — and what it reveals about how the big moments of our lives are really won or lost. Anchored in Mark 14:38, this devotional takes an unexpected turn through a les...

For most of his life, Blake had a hair-trigger — the moment he sensed he might disappoint someone, fight or flight would fire, and he’d swing or bolt before he ever paused. In this episode, he gets honest about the hurtful consequences of plunging ahead, and the slow lesson underneath it: his recklessness wasn’t confidence, it was fear. Anchored in Proverbs 14:16 and Isaiah 30:15, this devotional...

We can spend years learning about God and still not know Him. In this episode, Blake gets honest about the season he chased Bible knowledge just so he wouldn’t feel stupid around more mature believers — and the shift that finally brought his time in the Word to life. Anchored in 1 Corinthians 8:1 — “knowledge puffs up, but love builds up” — this devotional traces the move from head knowledge to he...

Jeremiah handed God’s people a picture they couldn’t miss: they had walked away from a spring of living water to dig their own cisterns — cracked pits that couldn’t hold a drop. In this episode, Blake gets honest about the cisterns he spent years digging with his own hands: people-pleasing, pretending, showing off — every one of them a way of trying to find life apart from God. Drawing on Jeremiah...

How did Jesus love? He laid down His life. In this episode, Blake gets honest about the quiet ledger most of us run when we love — the subtle expectation of getting something back — and holds it up against the way Jesus loved: with nothing held back and nothing owed. Featuring John 15:12–13 and Philippians 2:9–11, this devotional traces what sacrificial love actually costs, why the Father honors t...

When life presses in, we all go looking for something to steady us. In this episode, Blake opens an old journal entry — “Lord, I am struggling” — and traces the choice every struggle sets before us: reach for a quick substitute, or reach for the nourishment of God’s Word. Featuring Matthew 4:4, where Jesus meets the tempter in the wilderness at His weakest and takes hold of the Word instead. Blake...

Have you ever felt God nudging you toward something you feel completely unqualified to do? In this episode, Blake gets honest about his own version of that fear — sensing God asking him to publish his writing while feeling utterly inadequate — and finds unexpected company in Moses at the burning bush. When Moses asks “Who am I?”, God doesn’t argue that he’s capable. He gives a better answer: “I wi...

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed — one hard phone call, one bad report, and our stability cracks. In this episode, we sit with Psalm 62:2 and find that God is not just a rock to stand on but a fortress to hide in — and that His promise isn’t the absence of shaking, but the assurance that we won’t be toppled. Blake shares the season his business came under attack and anxiety took over, and the simple...

Have you lost your joy? Not your happiness — your joy. In this episode, we look at why joy goes missing, the difference between joy that’s pressed thin by hard seasons and joy that’s stolen by sin, and how King David found his way back after sin cost him everything. Featuring Psalm 51:12, this devotional traces the pattern of sin, silence, and confession — and the honest step that opens the door t...

Solomon compares a wise reprover to gold — not silver, not bronze, but gold. The most precious material in the ancient world. In this episode, we unpack why that comparison matters, what it means to be someone who speaks disruptive truth into the lives of those they love, and why the cost of doing so is part of what makes it valuable. Featuring Proverbs 25:12, this devotional explores both sides o...

The night before the cross, Jesus prayed one of the most powerful words in Scripture: nevertheless. In the deepest agony imaginable — sweating drops of blood, facing the weight of all humanity’s sin — He pivoted from what He wanted to what the Father willed. And immediately, an angel appeared to strengthen Him. In this episode, we explore what that pivot looks like in our own lives — how “neverthe...

What do you do when life beats you down and it feels like you have nothing? In this episode, we sit in the paradox of 2 Corinthians 6:10 — where Paul, from the middle of beatings, imprisonments, and hunger, writes: “We own nothing, and yet we have everything.” We explore what that paradox looks like in real life, what Matthew Henry meant when he called joy in tribulation a “duty and calling,” and...

Abraham was called a friend of God — not because he earned it, but because he believed. In this episode, we explore what it means to create room in our hearts for a deep friendship with God, and what Abraham’s faith teaches us about the kind of trust that moves our feet. Featuring James 2:23 alongside Genesis 12:1-4 and Genesis 22, we unpack how friendship with God begins with faith and deepens th...

Jesus gave His disciples the power to heal — and they still couldn’t do it. Why? Because they’d been careless in their spiritual walk. In this episode, we unpack what it means to cultivate our faith through spiritual disciplines and devotion — and why even seasons of peace can quietly erode our connection to the Source of our power. Featuring Mark 9:14-29 alongside 1 Timothy 4:7, we explore the di...