Today when I went down to my office there was another person in the hall that stopped by to ask some questions, and had just finished talking with another staff person when I came in. When they left, and I was sitting at my desk writing my sermon I decided to check my email real quick. I saw there was a nice response to the blog I wrote a couple of days ago. I decided to go back and reread it, just for fun. As I did I was immediately convicted by my behavior toward the visitor 20 minutes earlier. In my blog I wrote about influencing people by loving them, and making it about them not me.
As I replayed the encounter in my head, I said out loud to myself, “I know my problem”, “I am always in a hurry, wanting to get things done”. My brain is so focused on my “to do” list, and my next step, that I just don’t think about the present situation that I am in with people with enough focus to have much wisdom or thoughtfulness in my attentiveness to them and the conversation that I could have with them.
It gets discouraging to want to act a certain way, and treat people a certain way, but continually mess up. Can I change and learn? Yeh, I can, and I am getting better, but it seems so slow. I wish I could be perfect by next week, oops there I go with that hurry up and git er done stuff.
That’s the most honest sermon I’ve heard in a very long time. Thank you for just simple, plain, honesty. I enjoyed the human side of a pastor.
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Dee….. the reason your “value” is so high in my life, is because of your transparency. We all learn more from reality than falsehood! Think about this…… if “we” could not relate to you, we would not follow you! We follow you because we identify with you. Bottom line….. stay at it Man of God!
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