I’d spent a fair bit of time on Sunday night’s sermon. I had really grappled with this passage & felt like I had a two-handed grip on it. It’s been a great personal challenge to me too. That said, I just didn’t feel like I was in the comfortable position I wanted to be with the sermon itself. It didn’t feel gripping & I had less of that tingly anticipation & more of that nervous apprehension about how it would all pan out.
My lead in to preaching was not ideal that afternoon. I had some rough stuff to do, compounded by the fact that I left a folder with all my sermon notes & confirmation class notes at home (cue the mad drive down to the supermarket to buy some CDs to burn new copies of everything on my laptop so I could print them off at work.)
Bad place. Less than confident with the shape of my sermon but there I was.
Did I mention that Shona came & so did her friends (and my new friends) Sim & Dave, Marty & Jen?
I felt like the sermon itself went fairly average & like I put in a sub-par effort for my visitors.
Sometimes you need a lesson about a sovereign God who works through weak vessels.
One of my parishioners gave me some great feedback, saying that I had really spoken to her that night. Initially I thought she was just being polite, but she repeated the same sentiments a little later. My great visitors also gave me some good feedback (though I was encouraged that they felt comfortable about giving me the honest criticism about my being tied to my notes a bit too).
It was a tough day for me, but as I lay in bed reflecting last night, I realised that God is faithful to me & is seeking to use me even when I feel like crap & don’t feel like I have put a foot right. His strength really is perfected in my weakness!
So thanks to my visitors, thanks to great parishoners & praise be our sovereign God!
Tim Goldsmith 