Weekly e-News October 9
Hey, everyone!
Hope you’re having the most awesome Friday ever! Filled with praise! With thankfulness! With just a joyfulness and you’re not even sure where it came from! (Btw, it came from the praise and thankfulness…)
And I’d like to add my little contribution to the over-all effort toward your joy-filled Friday heart. I’d like to tell you a hilarious story I meant to tell y’all on Sunday in my message but I forgot it!
That happens to me lots of times! Loads of times on Sunday, I’ll have so much going on in my brain while I’m sharing with you, that I’ll forget a thing or two that I meant to throw in there!
If you’ve ever had to give a “talk”, speech or a sermon to a crowd of folks, you’ll agree that there are sometimes several things you’re thinking about all at the same time!
In the very same brainspace…
You’re thinking about what you’re saying while you’re saying it…
You’re thinking about what comes next…
You’re thinking about what you said a few minutes before (“Was that joke stupid? Inappropriate? Have I told it before? How many times? Did I tell it just last week!?”)
You’re thinking, as you look over the crowd… “Yikes! So-and-so must have lost something up that nose of his ‘cause he seems pretty convinced he’s gonna find something up there!”
You’re thinking… “Man! It’s already seven minutes to twelve and I’ve got a tons of stuff left! Pedal to the metal, baby!”
You’re thinking… “But I better not get louder if I get faster ‘cause someone I know apparently didn’t get enough sleep last night and only has seven minutes left for the nap he’s taking!”
And you’re thinking all of that at once!
I was reading the other day about the time one of my favorite pastors gave his first message. John Newton had been the worst person ever, then found Jesus, and after several stumbles and reboots, became the sweetest pastor ever! So full of wisdom, humor, joy, and love!
What a dude!
But when he gave his first sermon, what a dud!
He was thinking that God was calling him to leave his job and become a pastor. That’s when a friend/pastor asked him to try out preaching his first message ever in his friend’s church…
It was early June, 1758 in a small church in Leeds, England. Here’s how it went…
“…I set off tolerably well though with no small fear and trembling…Before I had spoken ten minutes I was stopped like Hannibal upon the Alps. My ideas forsook me; darkness and confusion filled their place. I stood upon a precipice and couldn’t advance a step forward. I stared at the people and they at me. Not a word more could I speak but was forced to come down and leave the people sitting there, some smiling, some weeping. My pride was sorely mortified…”
Wow! That was awkward!
But, thankfully, John Newton didn’t quit!
And he went on to become the most awesome pastor ever, wrote “Amazing Grace” and a kazillion other hymns, and helped end the horrible slave trade in England!
And I bet that in all that God has for you to do, you’ve had a time or two that didn’t go so well.
Maybe you lost your cool when things heated up…
Maybe they needed something better than you could think of to say…
Maybe it seemed hopeless and you gave up for a minute or two…
But you didn’t quit!
And now look at you!
Thank you.
So, about that hilarious story I was going to tell you…
Um…uh…
Rats! I forgot it again!