Monday Morning Preacher: With a lot of help from my friends

I was flailing and floundering. I thought watching the Giants game would make it better. It didn't. Nine o'clock, Saturday night, I had no sermon. I knew I was going to preach on the gospel because that's what drew me. I loved a lot of things I'd read about the gospel, including this blog entry from the Internet Monk. I had nothing.

But I did have friends. I talked to a friend who's a great preacher. I told her what I'd been thinking about. I told her what I'd seen that I'd liked. I told her I was stuck. She took approximately .05 nanoseconds of thought and gave me three brilliant points to make.

Not being one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I grabbed a notebook and copied the points down. And though I stayed up a while longer and got up early to work on fleshing it out, I ended up just adding a phrase at the beginning and one at the end to my notes, working through what I wanted to add in my head and trying it out verbally during the long drive in to church.

Here is the entirety of the notes for the sermon I gave yesterday:

Sneaky little parable.

Vertical not horizontal

Authenticity not achievement

Effort not outcome

Run your own race

Apparently, this filled up 10 minutes or so. And whatever I said to fill in the blanks apparently made some sense. People raved. Raved, I tell you! Several people wanted copies of the sermon; one wished it had been recorded so she could listen to it again. What on earth did I say? Whatever it was, any success is entirely owing to someone else's insights. Boy howdy, did I not deserve any credit. I know God is snickering over this one as humility strikes again. Any exalting I got was completely undeserved.

So, thanks, MD, for the brilliant sermon. I owe you big.