I have made it clear to everyone since I began my candidacy for deacon in the United Methodist Church that my sense of my calling does not include preaching. I am a teacher and counselor. Evenso, as a part time staff member at a large church, I try to be cooperative with whatever is needed. And I am finding that occasionally I am requested to stand in for senior staff in our smaller traditional Chapel service at 11:00am on Sundays. So far I’ve done it three times, and it has gotten easier each time. The pastor who assigns me had told me that he would give me several weeks notice, considering that I am way out of my comfort zone preaching.
Then he called me yesterday, Wednesday, to tell me he needed to go out of town and would I fill in for him in the Chapel on Sunday. YIKES! Four days to prepare. That doesn’t give me hours and hours, days and days, to work on a sermon. but I said yes anyway. And in the afternoon spent a little time considering a topic and Scripture. There is a subject I teach on often, so I decided to go with it and I had the Scripture identified, too.
Then I remembered that several people had recommended that I think about using the lectionary and had given me reasons, both pro and con, for using it as a basis for sermon preparation. So, instead of just going with my inclination, I looked up the lectionary selections for February 10th. And there it was…….the Scripture I had already selected!
I smiled to myself and thought, isn’t God good? It was like a confirmation for me that I was on track with the topic I had selected. It also occurred to me that God might be saying to me that whether I consider a topic from one He has put on my heart recently or use the lectionary, He’s in both methods and I shouldn’t sweat over it.
I just love those moments of God-incidents!