Today I preached a sermon on prayer. I’ve been grateful over the past 77 weeks, of which I have had to speak every week except the ones I didn’t, that studying to preach doesn’t come that difficult for me. Usually.
I could feel the mental and spiritual strain begin earlier in the week; though, I didn’t recognize it as such in the moments. I expect I was a bit more susceptible because I had been fighting The Sadness after our guests left.
By Friday evening, I was struggling. Saturday I simply could not–or did not–get to studying. I almost changed my topic choice to something else. The story of Jonah and the whale might have been easier. But I ended up finally pushing through.
How? I prayed. Doesn’t that seem ridiculous? I felt pretty foolish when I finally came to God Saturday evening and told Him I couldn’t get this sermon out. I needed divine help. Of course, I always do, and I always pray, but this was different.
I prayed a while until I broke through. I told Steph, and she prayed with me. Then I sat down and wrote my sermon out in about an hour. This was confirmation to me that I needed this sermon. And it was confirmation that the enemy was working against me.
But it was such a blessing to have my Father step in and put things to right. Why didn’t I come to Him right away? Partly because I didn’t recognize the attack as an attack. Partly because I have a lot of work to do to be as disciplined in prayer as I should be.
Walter and Evita were here for service. Alicia was along. It’s always a blessing to have other believers with us. They stayed for lunch.
Alicia has been ill the past two weeks. She’s on antibiotics, which are helping, but they are messing with her digestion. Steph made her soup and hot tea for lunch. We sent yogurt home with her to hopefully help balance things out.
We had a nice amount of sunshine on Friday, and a bit more today, but yesterday was cool. We’ve now hit our 47th consecutive day of rain. We saw snow on the low hills across the front field from us. That is highly unusual.
Juan David 