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."
Free 7-day devotional When Worry Won't Let Go at rodneycoe.com/worry-devotional. Books and blog at rodneycoe.com.
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Lift Up Your Day
Billy Graham: The Rule That Kept Him Honest
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A hotel room in Modesto, California, November 1948. Four young men in their late 20s sit on the edge of two beds, and the mood is not what you would expect from a team on the rise. Billy Graham had just called them together. He has been watching other evangelists, big names, gifted men, crash and burn. Some over money, some over women, some over lies they told about the size of their crowds, and Billy is afraid, not of failure, of becoming one of them. So he looks at his friends and says, Go to your rooms and come back in an hour. Write down every single thing that has ever ruined a man of God. Then we will make rules so it never ruins us. 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, the night a 29-year-old preacher built a fence around his own life and changed the course of American Christianity. When they came back to the room, the lists were almost identical. Four men, four sheets of paper, the same handful of dangers written on everyone. The first was money. Traveling evangelists in that day were famous for manipulating an offering, pressing on people's emotions until the wallets came out. Graham's team decided they would not do that. They would take a salary. They would let local committees handle the funds. They would keep their hands clean of the cash. The second was sexual sin. They had all watched at topple men they admired. So Billy made a promise that sounds almost old-fashioned now. He would not travel, meet, or eat alone with a woman who was not his wife, Ruth. People mocked it, people still do. They call it the Billy Graham rule, but in 60 years of ministry, not one whisper of scandal ever touched him on that front. Not one. The third was exaggeration. Preachers loved to pad the numbers. 10,000 became twenty. A handful of converts became a revival. Graham's men agreed to tell the truth about the crowds and the results, even when the truth was smaller than they wished. The fourth was a critical spirit toward the local church. Many evangelists rolled into town, ran their meetings, insulted the pastors, and left a mess behind. Graham decided he would honor the local churches and work alongside them. They called it the Modesto Manifesto. There was no lawyer, no contract, no press release, just four young men and a promise made to God in a cheap hotel room. And that promise held for the rest of their lives. Here's what I want you to see. Billy Graham did not wait until he was tempted to decide what he would do. He decided beforehand. He built the fence while the field was still safe. Scripture says it like this in Proverbs 426. Ponder the path of your feet and let all your ways be established. You ponder the path before you walk it. You settle the matter in the quiet, so the storm does not get a vote. Most of us do the opposite. We wait until we're tired, lonely, angry, or cornered, and then we try to make a holy decision in the worst possible moment. Graham knew his own weakness well enough to fear it, and that fear, the good kind, the wise kind, became the very thing God used to protect a lifetime of ministry. You may never preach to a stadium, but you have a life worth guarding. Decide now, draw the line now while your head is clear and your heart is calm. And that, friend, is how God lives up your day.