Do you ever have one of those days that you wish you could just go back and do all over again? Yesterday was one for me. Every pastor has a fear that he will stand up to preach and one of two things will happen. He will forget his sermon or forget his clothes and be standing berfore the congregation naked. Well yesterday one of those happened to me. No, it wasn't forgetting the clothes. It was the sermon.
On Saturday night I made sure to change the clocks forward one hour before bed. Unfortunately, i think I forgot to turn my alarm on. When my wife yelled that it was 2 hours past our normal time to get up on a Sunday morning, that set the tone for the rest of the day. When I went to pull up my sermon on my computer a little later that morning, it was nowhere to be found. Gonzo! Somewhere out into cyberspace world I guess. If I knew where it went, I would have went and got it. So one hour before church was to start, I had nothing.
The movie Groundhog Day came to my mind. Can I go back and start this day over again? Well I don't know about you, but I live in real world Kansas, not the land of OZ Kansas. So after getting my blood pressure down and stopping to think for a minute, I had a burning bush experience.
This is not about me! The sermon, the cute PowerPoint slides, the videos, or even the words to speak. They are not mine. They are God's. Who am I to second guess God. If I truly believe that God is
ALWAYS in control, then that means that even on a day when things don't go according to my liking, He is still in control. How many times do I miss what God wants to do because my plans have been messed with. How many times do I miss what God is
ACTUALLY doing around me because my mind is still in the land of wishful thinking.
Mark Batterson wrote about a similar thing in his book ID: The True You. I am going to paraphrase it; "
How many people in Washington D.C. miss out on the grandness of the monuments because they have lived there so long. How many natives of Colorado miss out on the breathtaking view of the mountains because they are accustomed to them." How many people in western Kansas miss the sunsets because they have seen them a hundred times. How many times do I miss out on the new thing God wants to do because I have grown accustomed to way God has done things in the past.
Mark Batterson goes on to say this; "The problem with God is this: He is so good at what He does that we tend to take Him for granted. He is so faithful. He is so available. He is so good. He is the ultimate constant so we take Him for granted."
It is always sunrise and sunset somewhere in the world. Every moment of every day. The miracle never ends!
What are you missing today because of your busyness? What is God doing around you that you are missing because your schedule got interrupted?
Open your eyes and drink in what God is doing around you. Take a deep breath and relax because God is in control and you are not!
