Wednesday, May 18, 2011

sometimes the best sermons....

....are the ones you preach to yourself!!!

Not really sure where to even start this blog entry, to be honest. It's been a rough month or so in my neck of the woods. I feel like I have been on an emotional roller coaster. Things I thought were so clear have become muddy and depending on the day I am not real sure which side is up. I can't go into too much detail without incriminating myself or without hurting feelings but I have felt lost the last few weeks on where the Lord is leading me. I'd like to do the easy thing and get back on prozac and feel nothing but my heart knows better than to exclude the beautiful and tender emotions the Lord has graciously given me.

Now that that is all so perfectly clear for you (ha ha)let me tell you about the sermon I had to preach to myself tonight and man was it a powerful one.You know when you're sitting in church and you feel like the preacher has been reading your thoughts and is preaching right at you? Well when you preach to yourself there is no mistaking who it's aimed at...and tonight I was the preacher and the audience. What was the inspiration for my sermon you might ask? Well after a really rough day at work I just needed to not be at home sulking all night so I did what I have come to thoroughly enjoy since I hit my 30's and care less about what others think of me...I went to a movie by myself. I saw "Something Borrowed" which I thoroughly enjoyed. Like most movies there was nothing morally right about it but I needed a good laugh and instead walked out with a sermon illustration. You see in the movie the main character, Rachel is getting ready to be the maid of honor in her best friend's wedding to her long term crush. Isn't that the way it always goes?? Before the end of the movie she puts on her big girl panties and confesses her love for the guy and I won't ruin the ending for those who plan to see it....but as I am driving home processing the movie I say to myself "doesn't it always work out the way it's suppose to"...sigh. As I hear myself say this my thoughts were no longer about the movie plot but became an instant reflection on Romans 8:28 "And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to whose who are called according to his purposes." And at that moment I just began repeating to myself "God works all things together for MY GOOD when I love him and when I walk according to his purposes for my life! I am not kidding when I say I kept repeating that over and over. Here's the thing...I am in a transitional place right now in my life and I have been more focused on me trying to work things out for my good but clearly that's God's role. My part in all of this is to LOVE HIM and to WALK ACCORDING TO HIS PURPOSES and when I do those things he is faithful to do his part.

The funny thing is that I really don't live that far from the movie theater but I had "church" in my car all the way home. As soon as I finished preaching to myself and let that message really sink in I just burst into singing Shane & Shane's "we love you Jesus" that just simply says: "we love you Jesus for so many reasons, for death and life and freedom...even now we love you!" I don't have any more clarity about the next chapter of my life than when I went into the movie and I am okay with that but I know that I can trust God to work things out for my good so I can stop wrestling and beating my head up against a wall as though it all relies on me.

1 comment:

Whitney said...

Awesome! That one preached to me too (I don't think that's grammatically correct). That was good for me to hear though is what I mean.

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