A very rare gathering in which I did the amount of talking that a preacher does.
We continued sharing stories of God in the flesh that inspire us. I assumed that I would be one of the last to speak. To my surprise, the group that was gathered asked that I give mine today.
I read the story of Jesus and the disciples caught in a furious storm on the Sea of Galilee when Jesus was roused from a deep sleep to command the wind and the waves to be quiet and still.
I found myself "exegeting" the story, from Mark 4, on the fly. The morning turned into, for me, an energizing interactive search into the meaning of the actions and words of Jesus and the people with Him on that boat.
When it was time for Evelyn to return our friends from the nursing home I couldn't believe how much time had passed.
A good morning. One I will remember for a long time!
My work friend Matt attended again. We actually carpooled to the facility. He is open but definitely not a repentant disciple. He offered me feedback on our way home.
ReplyDeleteInteresting. Helpful.
He is positive to the open ended, unstructured way we do things. He likes us.
But his engagement is mostly intellectual. He still lacks the godly sorrow that produces repentance and leads to salvation.
I've been thinking about the exegeting of the passage, as I said it, "on the fly." And it was that. I didn't know that I was even going to choose that passage beforehand. I had three in mind and I decided that the first one I found while paging through my Bible is the one I would choose.
ReplyDeleteYet, as I read the text and began to speak, I found myself having insights so profound that I was touched myself and excited to put them into words.
It would be more biblical to say that I was exegeting in the Spirit.
Never in preparing a sermon do I recall having so many profound insights in such rapid succession.
Also, when I did sermons, my greatest weakness, in my opinion, was in applying the text to life. I found myself speaking a profound application as I was speaking on Sunday.
So much of what I was trained to do seems to have stifled the Spirit. I am happy now to open myself to walking in Him.