fear and friendship...
So it's my Monday...everyone else's Saturday. In less than an hour, band practice will commence the breakneck pace of the pastor. It will be a blur until 1:00pm on Sunday afternoon. I will lead and read, talk and balk, listen and glisten, play and pray...people will come to this building on 1069 N. Hudson and get their weekly download from God and serve their tails off. Some will come to serve, some will come to sing, some will come to get sermonized, some will come to get pastorized, some will simply watch the show wondering whether it's real or an affectation.
I've studied today and feel confident the Lord has some stuff to share will us. I feel like a woman about ready to give birth...my heart wants to birth this mass of growing life inside of me called a sermon. There are contractions and cramps...some would call it butterflies, some would call it nerves, some would call it restlessness, I call it labor pain. The pain of the prophet just before he cracks open the cry of God. Every week I feel a shortness of breath, a weakness in the knees, a nervous twitch in my chest cavity...and every week I walk through the fears, the insecurities, the attacks, the accusations, the exhilerations, and the gut-wrenching abdominal pain that smarts with a message from the Word. The Word.
Everyone thinks I'm so dauntless and poised...what they don't know is that I am just about doubled over like a scared boy begging God to not leave me to myself tonight. Left to myself, I'm quite literally a guy that convulses and faints at the thought of speaking in front of people...but with God, my weakness is taken and tweaked with God's sufficiency and competency...and I catch ablaze with an unction from on High. I literally listen to my mouth say things unstudied and stand at a distance as my mind conceives things that are outside the boundaries of my ability. When the weekend comes to a close, I am once again humbled by the power of God to take a jar of clay and fill it with the excellency of His power.
This earthen vessel is about to walk across the parking lot and pour out the goods of God. But it is with fear and trepitation that I sojourn to that worship space. May I never forget how bereft of life I am apart from his enabling partnership. I cleave to him like a shivering limb grafted into the vine. Seperated from him I can do nothing, I am nothing.
I tread with fear and friendship...
here I go...
I've studied today and feel confident the Lord has some stuff to share will us. I feel like a woman about ready to give birth...my heart wants to birth this mass of growing life inside of me called a sermon. There are contractions and cramps...some would call it butterflies, some would call it nerves, some would call it restlessness, I call it labor pain. The pain of the prophet just before he cracks open the cry of God. Every week I feel a shortness of breath, a weakness in the knees, a nervous twitch in my chest cavity...and every week I walk through the fears, the insecurities, the attacks, the accusations, the exhilerations, and the gut-wrenching abdominal pain that smarts with a message from the Word. The Word.
Everyone thinks I'm so dauntless and poised...what they don't know is that I am just about doubled over like a scared boy begging God to not leave me to myself tonight. Left to myself, I'm quite literally a guy that convulses and faints at the thought of speaking in front of people...but with God, my weakness is taken and tweaked with God's sufficiency and competency...and I catch ablaze with an unction from on High. I literally listen to my mouth say things unstudied and stand at a distance as my mind conceives things that are outside the boundaries of my ability. When the weekend comes to a close, I am once again humbled by the power of God to take a jar of clay and fill it with the excellency of His power.
This earthen vessel is about to walk across the parking lot and pour out the goods of God. But it is with fear and trepitation that I sojourn to that worship space. May I never forget how bereft of life I am apart from his enabling partnership. I cleave to him like a shivering limb grafted into the vine. Seperated from him I can do nothing, I am nothing.
I tread with fear and friendship...
here I go...
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