Lost at sea...

I've been getting in some wild 'Fall sails' this month.  

Good thing too 'cause I've been feeling that way (lost at sea) lately.  It's been a tough couple months at the church and with the end of my current 'pay cycle' looming and our house sold with nowhere to move to yet and, really, nothing but uncertainty on the docket it's felt like grey clouds all around.

It's been really getting to us.

So much so, that I didn't think I was going to be able to preach this week.  That's one of the trickiest things about preaching week in and week out, finding a way to have something to 'say' from Scripture that's not really about you, and is worth your people's time and is open and vulnerable to the Holy Spirit...

Even when you're feeling about as far from life, hope and light as can be.

(I refer to this as 'learning how to preach 'The Light' from the darkness')

I had my text picked and kept reading it over and over all week and thinking about it, just letting it percolate in my subconscious.  I dissected it on Friday (which is later than I usually do it) but just couldn't bring myself to write it on Friday night even though Nik was out and the kids were asleep and I had the perfect window.

I was waiting for the 'spark'.

Saturday was early morning football with Jordan and the fam', then off to see about getting winter storage for my boat, then back home to clean, then off to Niki's Mom's for late thanksgiving.  I brought my stuff with me but wasn't in a hurry to get to it.  I sat in the sun in the backyard and enjoyed my wife and her mom and two aunts and my kids and a wonderful meal.  Two glasses of red in quick succession helped me relax and forget my sorrows for a moment or two.

After dessert I felt the 'spark'.  It was small, almost a non-event, but there.  Nik was going to lie down for a minute so I asked her if she'd mind if I sat down and at least got started.  She was cool with it so I pulled out my notebook, opened my Bible, pulled out my notes and started writing.

It just flowed.

I mean, effortlessly.  Wrote it in half the time I usually do.  Felt great.  Got it off my chest in time to really enjoy the last event of the day--a 13th birthday party for the eldest daughter of some of our closest friends.

Came home, slept like a baby, woke up yesterday feeling great, and preached my a$$ off.  I mean, it was fun, funny, open, honest, real, powerful and on-message in terms of what a 'sermon' is supposed to be in a Jesus-loving church.

I was amazed.

And humbled.

Reminded again that 'this' doesn't really have all that much to 'do' with us.  We're participants, sure, but we're also passengers.  

Carried along by the wind of the Spirit.

And then it hit me--all this great wind I've been experiencing on my 'Fall sails' lately? 

Always accompanied by dark clouds and foreboding seas.

Just like my life.

Point taken.

T