The Responder’s Rule: A Devotional Book by Josh Cehulik

Most of us spend our lives running away from the worst moments — the wreck, the fire, the overdose, the call no one wants to answer. But some people run toward them. You likely know at least one of them, even if you’ve never thought about it that way.

Consider the deputy a few rows back on Sunday. Your brother-in-law on the ambulance. The ER nurse who looks a little weary. The 911 dispatcher whose overnight shifts you never witness. Oftentimes these people carry a badge, a headset, or a stethoscope, and a private map of hard places most of us only ever see on the news. The overturned car at 2 a.m. The kitchen where a family’s whole world came apart. The porch where they delivered news that broke a father’s heart.

Their work is good work. It leaves scars.

Research suggests more than seventy percent of people experience at least one traumatic event in a lifetime. For the men and women in these professions, it comes by the shift, call upon call, year after year. Put it in the box, work the next call, go home. That box has a purpose on shift. But when it becomes permanent, the sealed weight quietly goes to work on their sleep, their emotions, their marriages, and their faith.

I serve these folks as a chaplain, and I wrote a devotional book for them based on a yearlong research project. I want to tell you about it, and then enlist your help.

The Responder’s Rule grows out of my scholarly research on an unlikely pairing: sixth-century monks and modern trauma recovery.

In the sixth century, a man named Benedict of Nursia watched the world unravel at the seams. Rome had fallen, violence and displacement the daily backdrop. In the middle of that collapse, he wrote a short, humane rule of life for ordinary people trying to seek God together. What’s remarkable is that fifteen centuries later, many of the same emphases show up in nearly every serious account of how people heal from traumatic stress.

The book adapts five of those Benedictine practices — stability, sacred reading, fixed-hour prayer, work offered as worship, and hospitality — aligned for people who live close to suffering. Thirty days, a steady, whole-person path that ordinary people have leaned on throughout history — now written for modern workers in today’s high-stress professions.

Free for five days — and two ways you can help

The book is now live on Amazon in both ebook and paperback from August 1 through August 5. Amazon is letting me offer the digital version completely free. Five days, no cost, for anyone who wants it.

I’m walking through the devotional publicly all month via all of my social media channels, and you don’t have to be a first responder to help reach one. There are two simple things you can do.

First, pray with me through the month. Would you? Each week in August I’ll name the practice we’re on, and you can pray simply and specifically: that God would use these thirty days to steady someone who’s carrying too much, alone. A book like this only matters if it actually reaches a weary heart, and prayer is how that happens.

Second, put it in someone’s hands — this week, while it’s free. Think of one person: the deputy, the medic, the nurse, the dispatcher, the veteran, the corrections officer. Between August 1 and 5, send them the link with a short, honest note: “I saw this and thought of you — and it’s free right now.” Cost is the easiest excuse to say “later,” and for five days that excuse is gone. That one text could make all the difference. If they’d rather hold a print copy, the paperback is available too and makes a genuinely good gift.

And please, download it free for yourself and read along. There’s wisdom here for anyone who lives close to hard things — a caregiver, a pastor, a parent walking a child through a dark season. But my main hope for you this month is simpler: pray, and pass it on.

One note, in case you find yourself handing this to someone who’s struggling: this book is a companion to good clinical care, never a substitute for it. If the person you’re thinking of is in real distress, the most loving thing is to encourage them toward help. In the U.S., first responders can reach trained peers through Copline (1-800-267-5463) and the Fire/EMS Helpline (1-888-731-3473), and anyone in crisis can call or text 988.

Thank you for praying with me. God was there in every one of those hard places — before they arrived, after they completed their shift, and on the drive home. Let’s pray these thirty days help someone believe it.

See you in the trenches, Josh