Preaching, presents, & popeye

Hey gang... I didn't realize it has been 12 days since my last entry on this blog. I guess Christmas had a way of getting my focus elsewhere. We did the Christmas play on the weekends of 12/9 and 12/16 and then I attended the Christmas play at Evergreen Community Church in Pine City on 12/23. This was the church that we were involved with helping start which is transforming lives up in Pine County and baptizing another 11 people this Sunday. Today I had the honor of speaking at New Hope and we went "In search of..." a hope that does not disappoint.

Preparing for this Sunday was grueling. I went through about 9 re-writes of the message. It felt like the Holy Spirit just kept saying..."No; not quite" and I would do down a different path. This hope that becomes an anchor for us is soemthing I needed a big dose of so, perhaps, this was God's way of having me look at the issue from multiple perspectives so that I would deepen my own understanding of it. Finally, on Friday night he solidified what I would share and then had me do some fine tuning Saturday.

Typically preparing to deliver a message is much easier, but for whatever reason this was a much more demanding challenge. I do feel, however, that God said what he wanted to say. I think we were all challenged to search out the deeper things of God and live our life according to them.

Without much of a break over Christmas, I'm planning to take the rest of the day off today (perhaps watch the Vikings slip out of the playoff race) and hopefully have New Years Day off (I know you all really wanted to know my schedule!).

I don't get a ton for Christmas, but it was probably the least expensive thing I received that mean the most to me. My brother put a can of spinach in my stocking. It is not uncommon for us to put goofy things in each others stockings.... I put hot dog buns, bread, macaroni, and butt paste in peoples stockings this year. Honestly, there is such a thing as "butt paste" and it makes a great stocking stuffer. Anyway, the reason the spinach was so meaningful is that he said he knows I am on the verge of a "Popeye" moment. These are the moments I've talked about before where people reach the point of "That's all I can stands and I can stands no more" and then act on it. It's no secret that there are some social justice issues burning in me, that are holy discontents, that are bubbling into popeye moments. This meant a lot to me.

Later...