Rob is the first to tell you he's a hypocrite. He'll get annoyed at his kids for leaving the toilet seat up, and then realise it was him. He'll lose his cool working from home and snap at whoever walks through the door, and then feel the conviction of it. He tells his kids constantly: I'm a hypocrite. Not as an excuse to stay that way, but because he thinks modelling the ongoing, messy, unfinished nature of faith is important.
In Part 2 of his Chip Lunch conversation, Rob picks up with the story of how he and Kate got together — through shared church community, scripture mornings, a lot of time at the Pad, and a brief break during which Rob discovered it was definitely Kate he was in love with, and not just love itself. They married at Parramatta, had two kids, and eventually made the decision Rob had carried for years: to move overseas and be used wherever the need was. The need turned out to be Qatar.
Rob talks about what four years in the Middle East actually looked like; the family unit it built, the cultural lessons it taught his kids, and their youngest being born there. He also reflects honestly on coming home, re-engaging with church and community, and the way fatherhood keeps exposing things in him that God is still working on.
Through all of it, the through-line is grace — not the polished, sorted, has-it-together version of Christianity, but the kind that acknowledges the log in your own eye, says sorry properly, and trusts that God has a reason for the stuff-ups too.
When asked what he'd tell his younger Christian self, Rob says: nothing. God had a reason for all of it.