Monday

They say more preachers quit on Monday than any other day.

I can understand that.

Standing before people and opening God's Word, having prayed and prepared all week, hoping and praying that God will inhabit the moments and empower the message... leaves you at the edge of a cliff leaning forward. Even if you run through your routine - like a golfer on the tee - and try to put yourself outside the act you are about to do, and make yourself focus on the "process", if you are serious about hoping to be used by God, your heart is exposed and vulnerable. That's just the way it is.

Philip Brooks famously said, "Preaching is Truth through personality" - and you are in that message. You step out knowing that you cannot even begin to know what the people in front of you are struggling with, except in a general way - unless they tell you. But you believe with everything you've got that the God you serve wants each and every one of them to move closer, so His arms will embrace them.

And sometimes, looking back, you feel like you were in the way, like a tall guy at a parade with little kids trying to find a way to see around you. If you'd just move, maybe someone would get it... this time. If the music had been right, if it hadn't been so hot or so cold, if this family or that hadn't been on vacation... you invent scenarios that have nothing to do with reality.

The reality is that no matter what happened, God WAS there.

Yesterday, my friend Joe Gnatek up in New Hampshire sent a message out to his church via Facebook that said :

When we are weak God is made strong in us. We had a very weak service today. But God is still good. I'll preach better next week. I thought I was still on vacation. ;)

I understand what Joe was feeling when he wrote that.

If he'd only had our praise team's version of "Our God Is Greater" from yesterday I'm sure he'd have felt better. ;)

But God's power to change lives does NOT depend on our ability at all.

One day we'll be able to see what those "off" Sundays did for the Kingdom. I would not be surprised if some of them might just be the ones God used the most for His glory.