I was playing softball this Saturday. We had our church league, end-of-the-season tournament. If you know me, and my athletic prowess, you may be chuckling, and rightly so. During the first game (of four), I had a collision with the catcher. It’s hard, once I get moving, there is not a lot of lateral control. It’s enough just to get moving forward. I slammed into this guy pretty hard. He was a big guy, and we both ended up on our butts.
Sometimes ministry, family life, & extra activities collide kinda like that. This weekend felt that way. I had planned a motorcycle ride for Friday. Twenty-one of us did the Cascade Loop ride. It was about 400 miles and eleven hours, much of which was in the oven along the Columbia River. It was really fun, but it was an incredibly long and draining day. (See Pics Here) When I got home that night, I had a phone call from our coach telling me that our first game was at 9AM not 10:30,… great!
I ate, went to bed and was out in seconds. In the morning I arrived at the field at 8:30 ready to play ball. I was excited to play what I expected would be a couple of short games, go home, and get ready for church in the evening. The day turned out to be a little more than what I expected. It was hot, real hot, (so was our team.) I have never been in a “double elimination” tournament, and I realize now, I don’t like them! We won the first game something like 24-4, lost the second by one point, and then we faced the only team that we had lost to during the season,… the other Calvary team. We handled them.
After the game that they gave up early, Kelley and I were talking about the rest of the day’s schedule,… there was a possibility, if we won the 3:00 game, that we would play a 5:00PM championship game. Then the second collision of my day happened. He said, “You’ll have to leave, you have communion tonight.”
Bam! I was exhausted, burned out, in pain from head to toe, and I had forgotten my most important job! I was embarrassed, and ashamed. With all of the weeks activities, Communion slipped my mind.
I had a thirty minute break between games, so I quickly ran over to the church, got cooled down for a few minutes, picked up a bible and prayed. The only thing I could think was, “Okay Lord, this has got to be You.” And, “be ready in season and out.” The awesome thing, is that in about 10 minutes, I felt like the Lord gave me an entire outline for an awesome communion meditation. It always amazes me how the Holy Spirit can speak to me. In my weakness, He is strong, He is brilliant.
I went back to the field for what was thankfully our last game, confident and ready for the rest of the day.
As I delivered the message Saturday night and twice on Sunday, I felt like I was delivering the Lord’s message, and not something that I had cleverly crafted.
After, the last service a lady, (that I don’t know, and have never seen before) came up to me with tears in her eyes, and said, “you are a great teacher, that was an awesome message,… thank you.” I said, “Well, er,.. ah,.. you know the Lord is … She interrupted, “Yes, I know, to God be the glory.” I said, “Yes, that’s right!”
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