Breathe: An Easter Prayer & Survival Guide for Preachers
How are you feeling about this Holy Week?
There are sermons to preach, worship services to lead, bulletins to proof.
You probably have pastoral calls to make and maybe even a funeral to conduct...or two?
Maybe you feel swamped and overwhelmed. Maybe you feel in pretty good shape.
No matter how you're feeling, there are a lot of details to keep track of.
So through all the cares and occupations of our lives this Holy Week and Easter Sunday, this is my prayer for you, dear Preacher:
Breathe into the one thing you are to do in this one moment.
Breathe.
Breathe slowly, deeply, intentionally.
Breathe in the Spirit. Breathe out ego.
Breathe in peace. Breathe out anxiety.
Breathe in love. Breathe out forgiveness.
Breathe at your desk.
Breathe as you lead worship.
Breathe as you enter the pulpit.
Breathe.
The One Thing
Ask the Spirit what one thing you are to do right now.
If it's to work on your sermon, work on your sermon and your sermon alone.
If it's to proofread bulletins, then focus on each line, each word, each number, one...at...a...time.
If it's to stand in the pulpit and preach, then preach with your whole being.
Do the one thing you are to do. And find the peace of Christ waiting for you therein.
This One Moment
It's all we have.
Only this moment.
This one moment that God has given us.
We're no longer living a moment ago.
What is to come is not yet.
There's only now.
In this one moment, breathe and focus.
Don't miss the holiness of God with you in this one moment.
Don't miss the holiness of God with you in this moment because you're busy trying to make God show up in another one.
Don't miss God. Here. Now.
This week, breathe into the one thing you are to do in this one moment.
Thank you for preaching this week.
Thank you for sharing the extraordinary truth of being loved and forgiven. Thank you for sharing that truth from the pulpit. Thank you for sharing that truth in your life.
Be Good News to Preach Good News,
Lisa+