Lift Up Your Day
Lift Up Your Day with Pastor Rodney Coe — a 5-minute Christian devotional podcast for the heart that needs lifting.
Every Take 5 episode is a true story from history and Scripture about ordinary people God used to do extraordinary things. Pastor Rodney Coe — author of 5 books, devotional writer, and pastor — tells the stories warm, well-paced, and pointed at the part of your day that needs the most lifting.
You'll meet missionaries saved by angels (John Paton), a watchmaker's daughter who forgave a Nazi guard (Corrie ten Boom), a Tennessee farm boy who took a hill in the Argonne (Alvin York), a Senate chaplain who wasn't ready (Peter Marshall), a man who walked with God at 4 a.m. (George Washington Carver), and more.
Each episode ends the same way: "And that, friend, is how God lifts up your day."
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Lift Up Your Day
Matthew Henry: Robbed and Still Thankful
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A robbed man picks up his pen, and what he writes will still be preaching three hundred years later.
On a dark road outside Chester, thieves took every coin in Matthew Henry's pockets and disappeared into the woods. He walked home shaken, cold, and empty-handed. Most men would have filled their diary that night with anger.
Matthew Henry filled his with thanks. Thankful he had never been robbed before. Thankful they took his purse and not his life. Thankful that what they took was not much. Thankful he was the one robbed, and not the one robbing.
How does a man write words like that on the worst night of his week? In this five-minute Take 5 devotional, Pastor Rodney Coe shares the story of Matthew Henry (1662-1714), the Welsh-born pastor and biblical commentator whose words still feed pulpits and kitchen tables today, and what one robbed diary page can teach us about giving thanks in everything.
Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 5:18 | Job 1:21
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Heaven is closer than you think. Lift up your day.
The road outside of Chester was already dark when the men came out of the trees. There were more of them than there was of him. They wanted his purse, and they took it. Every coin, every scrap of paper he carried that day. Then they slipped back into the shadows and left him alone on the road, pockets empty, a long walk still ahead of him. He was no young man, and the night had turned cold. Stay with me. You're gonna want to hear the rest of the story. Welcome to Lift Up Your Day, a five-minute devotional short stories with a biblical heartbeat. I'm Rodney Coe, and today a Rob man picks up his pen and what he writes will still be preaching 300 years later. The man on that road was Matthew Henry. He was born in Wales in 1662, the same year his father was put out of his pulpit for the sake of conscience. He came into the world early and frail, and most who saw him did not expect him to live long. As a young man he trained for the law. God had other plans. Henry gave himself to preaching instead, and for about twenty five years he served a congregation in the city of Chester. He carried a quiet habit that shaped everything. Every morning he rose before the sun and worked on something he knew would outlast him. It was a commentary on the whole Bible, written verse by verse for plain people who simply wanted to know what God was saying. He reached the book of Acts before he died in 1714, after a fall from his horse on the road home. His friends finished the rest from the notes he left behind. That commentary went on to feed giants of the faith. George Whitefield read the whole thing four times, and the last time he read it through on his knees, Charles Spurgeon told every preacher he knew to read it cover to cover at least once. People still open his words at kitchen tables and in pulpits every week. Not bad for a frail boy, nobody expected to survive. But come back with me to the robbery. He reached home that night, shaken and a good deal poorer. He opened the diary the way he always did. A smaller man would have filled the page with anger. But as he opened this diary, Matthew Henry filled it with thanks. He wrote that he was thankful, first because he had never been robbed before. Second, because they took his purse and not his life. Third, because they took all that he had and it was not much. And fourth, because he was the one who was robbed and not the one doing the robbing. How does a man write words like that on the worst night of this week? He could do it because he had been practicing for years. Every morning in the scriptures he had trained his eyes to find God on the page. So when the page of his own life went dark, his eyes already knew where to look. Paul said it plainly in First Thessalonians chapter five and verse eighteen. Notice he did not say give thanks for everything, he said in everything. There is always a line of thanks waiting to be written, even on a dark road, even with empty pockets. Maybe today took something from you, a plan you had been counting on, or a hope you were holding close. Tonight you get to choose what fills the page. You can write down all that was lost, or you can pick up the same pen Matthew Henry used and start counting what is still in your hands. And that, friend, is how God lifts up your day.