Thoughts before I get ready to preach...

Every job has its nuances. Unique intangibles.

One of the parts of my job description is preaching, not 52 weeks a year anymore (thankfully), but still a good majority of the time.  The craft of preaching has unique requirements and rewards.  I've been at it for almost 22 years and have loved it for the most part.

I've spoken to children, students, the elderly, college students, business leaders, and city officials.  I've spoken on college campuses and at trustee dinners and weddings and summer camps and conferences.  Shaping each message to fit the audience and the environment keeps you on your toes...it's kinda exciting and unnerving...but that makes it an adventure.

We're in a season at Impact Church were I speak 4 times each weekend.  I'm 44 years old and the engine doesn't run like she used to.  Adrenaline carries me to the finish line each week, but I feel spent to say the least after pouring myself out back to back to back to back.  Imagine a quadruple-header in baseball.  Something like that...

There are some weeks that after I preach on Saturday night, I can't wait to wake up and preach the message three more times on Sunday.  I feel glad that I didn't put in all the effort to only share once with one group of people.  However, there are other weeks when I get done on Saturday Night and I dread the thought of preaching that same message again, let alone three more times.  I feel sideways about it, or unamused with my presentation.  I feel like it didn't land in the hearts of people and that when it came time to share what I had on paper and in my heart, I couldn't get my mind and mouth working together leaving me less than enthused to repeat the horror show.  Ok, that's a little melodramatic, but less so than it may seem.

This morning I'm prepping to preach and tonight at the Saturday Night service is my first stab at it.  I always feel the jitters, even if I'm excited with what is pulsating in my heart.  I wonder if I should go a little different direction or if what I put together is even that compelling.  I wonder if it is all in my head, like it makes sense to me but won't to most others.  I wonder if I have too much content and not enough stories, or too many illustrations and not enough meat, as they say.  I wonder if it has enough application or enough explanation.  I wonder if it's even worth the time of day if I'm being honest.  

Here I sit, pondering a plethora of thoughts and questions that can dry up my bones...but dry bones don't cut it when you're stepping up to the pulpit to preach.  People need to hear from burning bones, a heart afire and aflame with a message from God's Word that lights their logs and ignites their soggy souls.  I put pressure on myself to instigate and inspire, to quicken and enlighten, to apply my jumper cables to their battery and start their stalled engines.  Of course I know that it's not all on me to do these things, I work in cooperation with God's Spirit to accomplish the transformation of the human heart, but I'm lying if I don't say that it weighs on me a bit to eye the task in front of me...say, this weekend.

I have particular thoughts about my message coming into most weekends.  Forgive me if I sound bi-polar...

- You have nothing to say.

- I can't wait to share my heart.

- It doesn't have enough humor in it.

- I love being a voice box for God.

- It's not deep enough.

- I have prayed through it near enough.

- I hope people leave encouraged.

- I should have gone a different direction.

- I wonder if anyone is going to show up.

- I can't wait to worship God with my gifts.

- I'm so nervous that people won't connect.

- I can't wait to see people again.

- I'm not worthy.

I could go on.  Suffice it to say that preaching is torture on most weekends.  But the labor of love is so worth it when you spend hours in preparation, hours in presentation, and then hours in contemplation after the fact.  God is good and he will do what he's gonna do no matter whether I feel awesome or awful about how things went.  I see with human eyes; I don't see as he sees...which means we don't always see eye-to-eye, but I try to trust his eyes and not my own.

It still doesn't make it any easier. 

Well, here goes nothin'.  Do you thing, God.