What it is like to deliver a sermon

It's Sunday night. I'm tired and ready for rest. But the day has been good, and I am so grateful for the honor of what I do.

Most people look forward to Friday night as the end of a week of work. I look forward to this night, even though tomorrow is a work day. Sunday is the day of sermon delivery, and unless you've spent several years delivering weekly sermonic offspring, you probably can't understand.

Delivery is a Good Word for It
When it comes to sermons, delivery is a good word for how they are given. Sermons are not spoken. They are not merely read. And sermons are not presented. Sermons are delivered. Like children are delivered.

They hurt while they form inside of you. They can make you feel sick. They make you doubt your ability to produce them. They stretch and push the limits of the bone and sinew of your soul. Sermons are not mere speeches written and read. They are life, formed within you, then they pass through you at great personal pain.

Birth-Like
Yet a well delivered sermon can leave you full of joy. When those to whom you speak truly receive your offspring, there is a great sense of obedience.

But always, the process humbles and forces one to plead for assistance. There are never lonelier moments than those of the sermon giver going to the place of delivery. No one can understand. No one.

And when the last words are shoved out of your spirit, leaving you fatigued--even after a seemingly quiet and peaceful delivery, there is nothing sweeter than rest. And a little bit of revelry in the fact that you will not do this again for another seven days.

Choosing the Corner Into Which You Want to Paint Yourself: Life Change

I've been writing about life change and about new beginnings. Today let's consider choosing the corner into which you want to paint yourself. How will life change be brought about in your living?

Here is a quick lesson in how to begin painting yourself into a corner.

Beginnings: Getting Specific
So what are you hoping to begin? A new lifestyle of exercise? Becoming serious about praying, meditating or reading scripture? What do you need to begin? Be specific and choose your corner.

Know Your Goal
Write it down very specifically. "I want to pray two times per day for ten minutes." Or, "I want to become a healthy person by weighing no more than _____, and by being able to run/walk/hike/trek/ski _____ amount by _______ date."

Look at the Price Tag
Jesus taught those wanting to follow him that they should first count the cost. Few sales people want us to do this. But Jesus was all about being honest up front.

If you have decided what it is you'd like to accomplish next in your life, here's a good place to start. Consider what it will cost you.
--It will cost you some freedoms. Write them down.
--It may cost you some money. Write those costs down.
--Change will cost you some serious will power. Write down some examples of when and where you will need that.
--You will need to learn about how to accomplish your goal. Write down how you will research this.

Now, look at the price tag. Think about it. Are you willing to commit to that price?

If you are willing to pay the price in order to meet your goal, then record your goal. Tell a supportive friend and ask them to encourage you along the way.

Welcome to "In the Mean Time"
And now, welcome to the mean time. You have not arrived. You will not for a long time. You are in the in-between-time, and this is where you will be tried and tested. And this is where you will have failures. And this is where you can live in gratefulness for your free will. And this is also where you will succeed, if you will only stay here.

Beginning, Remaining and Being Grateful

Years ago, I married my dear wife, and we began a home...the process of making a life together. Just now, I put my grandchild down for a nap after a morning of fun with her. I cherished the brief cuddle before placing her in her bed. And what of the in-between times?

Those have been times of remaining.

Most of Life
It seems to me that most of our life is spent in remaining. Our days are marked with beginnings. Where I live, we will soon plant spring gardens. And planting will mark only the beginning.

An ancient teacher and Christian scripture writer said that he had learned to be content no matter his circumstances. I guess that is what I am seeing to know.

Planting a seed is a mere matter of poking it into the earth. But the toils which follow are worked out midst hotter, more humid days--days of pulling weeds, swatting mosquitos, hoeing and watering. Long hours of sweat are given for each moment of planting and each taste of harvest. They are days of remaining.

Most of life is spent "in the mean time." Most of our time is invested in the process of remaining.

Harvests and Gratefulness
The days come at the end of growing cycles when we reap harvests from our gardens. Our planting and our remaining reap dividends at last. These are days of gratefulness. It is easy to be thankful with a counter mounded with fresh produce. Harvests are a natural time to be grateful.

But what about the in between times?

Here's the Trick!
I'm learning to be grateful for the process. To enjoy the remaining. To be thankful "in the mean time." Between the planting and the harvest, there is a miracle happening. A seed is reproducing itself in a most helpful and self-sacrificial way. We are given the blessing of weeding, hoeing and watering to help the miracle along.

If you cannot enjoy the trickle of sweat on your back, the sun on your face and the ache after bending--and carrying--and yanking a hoe through stubborn soil; then you are not cut out to be a gardener.

The trick is to enjoy the process. The joy is in the journey--as much as it is in the dreaming before, and arriving later at the destination. Gratefulness cannot be reserved for "some day." It is to be ours today!

I'll Be Happy When...
So when will you be happy? At what point will you be able to drop your somedays, and rejoice in your todays?

My granddaughter is sleeping peacefully. My beautiful wife is with me enjoying this day off. My son is throwing his unique dignity into new a piece of pottery. My daughter is passionately teaching a classroom of children. My son-in-law is finishing a Master's Degree on his way to being an excellent school counselor.

And I am counting the joys in the midst of life. There are many beginnings behind and before me. I pray there are many finishes and harvests ahead. But in this "mean time," I am remaining.

And after my beginnings and before my harvests--as I stand remaining in the mean time, I am learning to be grateful.

Painting Myself Into a Corner: On Purpose

OK. So yesterday I decided to do a blog post here thirty days in a row. And today I left for Indianapolis very early so I could attend an all-day seminar, and then a dinner with friends.

Anything But Convenient
Sometimes our commitments are anything but convenient! Tonight, at nine-thirty PM, my thirty day commitment is staring me in the face. That's what commitments are for. They are not intended to be easy. They are intended to be in your face. They are a way of you getting into your own face. That's why they call it self-discipline, I suppose.

Exercise commitments put us in places where we are required to do what is not comfortable. So are marriage commitments. So is any relationship worth having. Things of value in your life will rarely be convenient or cheap. And we all must choose what will be of value to us...or risk not knowing things and relationships of value.

New Beginnings
There have been many new beginnings in my life. There were times when I committed to praying or reading scripture more often, losing weight, exercising, being a better husband, spending more time with my children, taking classes toward another degree, moving to a new congregation to care for a new set of people...and the list could go on and on.

Each beginning was made with enthusiasm and a sense of determined commitment. It seemed that all I could see was the up-side of the promise. Yet soon came a moment of truth. This was a time when I was forced to choose between current ease, and longterm accomplishment.

Failing
Here's the kicker. In my life, when it comes to diet, exercise and many other commitments; I've failed more often than I've succeeded. I've started exercising many more times than I've accomplished a successful habit. I've begun spiritual disciplines and dropped them literally hundreds of times.

But I think that failure is only failure if you decide to cave-in for good.

One More Day
Well, I've sat with my word processor for about 20 minutes now. I've written something that at least makes sense to me at the end of a long day. And maybe I'm the only one who cares. But I've kept a promise for one more day.

Now I can go pray and sleep knowing I'm still in this thing.

Peace to you.

Beginning a New Thing: Exercise

Fits and Starts
About ten years ago, I decided to begin exercising. I was beginning a new thing. What I mean is, I decided to make exercise a regular part of my life. And so I started, and stopped an started again. Many times.

There were injuries and illnesses and habits long ingrained that offered great resistance to my plan. I would jog a few times in a week. And then I would get really busy with my job or family. And soon, I'd be three weeks into not exercising. Then three months. Who was I trying to kid? "I'm just not on of those health nuts!" I kept rationalizing.

Inspiration
One spring day a few years later, I drove three hours north of our home to sit with a friend who's father was having surgery. I was there for support. It was an all day thing. It was a day when I knew I'd not have time to exercise. But the day changed my life.

I spent a few hours in a hospital waiting room with a stocky lawyer who appeared less in shape than me. He told me he ran marathons. He told me his secret was to never cause himself pain. What?

Never Cause Yourself Pain
He explained that if you run too fast or too far, you will hate jogging and soon you'll quit. But if you go slowly and set small goals, soon you'll enjoy the process. "Get comfortable shoes," he said. "And just enjoy."

And so I did. I began to run--no--I began to slowly jog short distances in comfortable shoes. I never allowed myself to get winded. (I loved that rule!) It was never hard to breath. If it started to get hard, I slowed down or stopped. I just kept my eye on the prize of good health.

Challenged!
About a year after I began this painless process, a friend asked me to train with him to run the mini-marathon (13.1 miles) the next spring. The event was six or seven months away, and after a few weeks, I went online and signed-up--even though I could not run more than two miles at the time. I doubted I would follow-through. However, I went to the bookstore hoping against hope that I could do this thing! I bought a book called MARATHONING FOR MORTALS. And I began to train.

Each Sunday, a group of five or six of us from church would go to a flat, paved trail and slowly jog together. At first we did a mile. Five months later, only a week or so before the event, we jogged nine and a half miles. I had never run that far in my life. And the mini-marathon would be three and a half miles further. Yet now, I knew I could do it!

My Goals for the Race
I set two goals for the mini-marathon. My first goal was to finish. Second, I wanted to jog the entire way...no walking. I didn't care if grandmothers flew past me. (And some, no doubt did.) I knew my pace, and I knew I could do this.

Perhaps the single most fulfilling day of my life was the day I ran the Indianapolis Mini-Marathon. Two hours and thirty-one minutes after I began, I finished. And I had only begun.

Six Years Later
Today I continue to push myself to exercise. I enjoy trekking/hiking in hills and mountains. I don't cause myself pain. But I miss the workouts when I'm not able to do them. Exercise is my friend.

A lawyer convinced me to make fitness a part of my life--instead of an occasional fetish--when I was in my mid forties. Today, I weigh thirty-five pounds fewer than when I started. I weigh five pounds less than when I ran the mini. I get sick less often, and find exercise to be free therapy for tough times.

What About You?
In what areas do you need inspiration? What single challenge has you intimidated? Where do you assume you are stuck? Feel free to feedback here.

In my next post, I hope to apply some of this to other challenges in life. In fact, I've challenged myself to increase my writing. I plan to post something here every day for the next thirty. It's my new thing. What's yours?

How do you write a book?

There have been several people to ask me the question: "How do you write a book?" I suppose there are many ways to answer that question. I'm going to give you mine.

ME, AN AUTHOR?
I have always enjoyed taking a few days during a vacation to write. Often I'd simply begin writing the story of a person in some difficult situation. Usually I'd trail on for five pages, or fifty, then run out of time.

When I wrote The Runaway Pastor, it was much the same. I sat down one evening with the question on my mind: What would happen if a pastor ran away and hid from his life? What if?

And so I began writing. I finished writing the first few pages or so, and decided to keep them. Later that evening, I wrote a bit more. When prompted to name the file, I called it "Trent's Very Bad Day."

THE OBSESSION
Honestly, Trent's story became an obsession for me. I seemed to constantly wonder, "What going to happen next?" The story of The Runaway Pastor leapt from my mind one briskly written sentence after another. I couldn't stop the story or the characters. They kept acting. I kept writing.

And that is how the book came to be. That is how I best answer the question: "How do you write a book?"

SEQUEL?
I have begun work on a sequel for The Runaway Pastor. In fact, I have about seven starts. I like them all. But no one of them pesters me to keep creating. After writing about a chapter's worth, the characters seem to go away. I don't go to sleep wondering what will happen next.

MY PROBLEM WITH FOREKNOWLEDGE
And here is the ugly truth: Unlike the first book, I already know how this one will end. I know what will happen in the middle in order for that end to become reality. And I have several starts to get me on my way.

This knowledge defines my writer's block problem. For me, a story is exciting only so long as its conclusion is uncertain. Evidently, where there is no mystery, I am no author.

Looking for the mystery.

Egyptian Transitions from Beneath the Ironing Board

I was too small to see the top of the ironing board, but knew she was weeping as she pushed the iron across it. I understood better when I watched the black and white scene of a young boy saluting as his father's casket rolled by. I can still hear the horse hooves. To this day that sound hits me with a mixed sense of regal and tragic.

And then, as I continued to grow up, I remember two other assassins and their victims. Black and white, and wondered to myself if important people would be able to live any more.

I remember dancing with my infant children as Eastern Europe's wall fell, and as people teemed through its widening seams. And I wondered how the world would work with such desperate need meeting such complacent plenty.

I think this day will be such a memory. Trying to work at my office while listening to the BBC depict the events in Cairo, where I walked just three short months ago.

We like to think we know how history should turn. We may even believe we know best. But as one who prays multiple times each day: "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven," I am observing as a little one. I'm trusting in the hand of God, the wisdom of his ways and the strength of his people.

Who knew that the "Godless Communists" would have held onto faith midst such dark realities? Who knew the wall fell that relational and spiritual wealth would not flow West to East alone?

And who knows but what God's Kingdom may yet have a chance of becoming reality among us? Why, after all, do we pray for it, if we are going to cower and groan when our world changes shape in ways we cannot control? We can't even see the top of the ironing board.