Sometimes a sermon ends and the preacher is left thinking: "I just wasn't able to finish that - I started in a direction, but I just didn't have the clarity to get to where I was going."
And, that's what I felt after yesterday's sermon. It was one of those where I said what I had to say and was willing to sit down and hope those who heard could take the sermon where it needed to go for them. Better, I was hopeful that the Spirit of the Living God could use a relatively meager offering from me to bless those gathered.
As I move into the Monday work world, I take with me one thought from the thinking I was going through in that sermon yesterday about finding "harbors" for our souls in daily life. I think a real key is to have eyes for the good, to be able to find the good, the peaceful, the joyful, the funny in daily life. I will be gathering up my files and going to court today for 16 clients. I will be talking with prosecutors, officers, probation officers, inmates, other defendants who are out of jail, their families, court officers, my fellow public defender's office staff, and maybe a church member or two by phone or my fellow pastor throughout this day. I'll probably talk with my wife a couple of times, maybe my mother once as well.
It occurs to me that I will be interacting with a lot of people today. And, with each interaction, with God's grace, I might be able to provide a little harbor for others if I treat them with respect and kindness. Maybe part of that sermon yesterday should have been more about becoming a harbor for other people's souls and less about finding a harbor for our own souls? That would have been more in line with Jesus' way.
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