“Those who honor me, I will honor.”
I believed that if I honored the Lord in worship and prayer, He would then honor me by helping me with my sermon.
The other day, I came home from a speaking event that took place out-of-town. When I got home, I was quite tired. However, I had one more thing I needed to do before I retired for the night: I had to finish preparing a sermon. And this was a sermon that I was going to preach the very next day. It was such a busy week (preparing for the speaking engagement and being away for a few days) that I simply didn't have enough time to work on my Sunday sermon. I thought I could utilize the remaining hours of Saturday evening when I came home to work on it. How naïve of me. I ended up being so much more tired than I thought I would be. In fact, I had such a hard time concentrating properly in my attempt to finish the sermon.
At some point, I decided to give up on the task. I wasn't making much progress. Instead, I did the only thing I could do with the last bit of energy I had left: pray. I guess I could have gone to sleep. No one would blame me if I made such a decision. But I thought it was necessary to pray to God, especially since the last few days were unusually busy and my prayer times were a bit spotty. It felt necessary to go to the Lord in prayer. And so, that's what I did. I set my sermon aside and prayed. Although I didn't have the capacity for deep mental work, I did have some capacity to go on my knees and pray to the living God.
I presented myself to God in my wearied and tired state and asked Him for His supernatural strength for the next day's work. I trusted in what God said in 1 Samuel 2:30 (ESV), "For those who honor me I will honor." I believed that if I honored the Lord in worship and prayer, He would then honor me by helping me with my sermon. And that's exactly what happened the next day. Though I felt woefully under-prepared, the preaching actually went fine. I might even go as far as to say that it went even better than I expected it to. And that’s because I had believed that the Lord would give me the strength to carry it out. And God did not disappoint.
It's important to note that this isn't my usual habit. I try not to be careless with my sermon preparation. I want to prepare as best as I can so that I can handle God's Word well. And most of my sermons are indeed well-prepared for. But once in a while, I come across a situation like this where I just don't have enough time to prepare and I just need help. It's not for a lack of effort or due to laziness. In times like these, God seems to be more than happy to help me as I honor Him in worship and prayer. I had chosen to honor God above sermon preparation and He honored me in turn by helping me with the sermon presentation.
Barnabas the Monastic
Servant of Christ. Husband. Dad. Modern Monastic. I have a wild ambition in life: get as close to the Lord Jesus Christ as I can while on earth. I explore and integrate ancient Christian monk wisdom in modern everyday life. Lives in Canada.
