November 2, 2024 - Peace Revisited

Saturday, November 2, 2024  Sent
       I wrote this earlier in the week, but didn’t have peace about sending it until this morning.
 
Wednesday, October 30, 2024  Peace Revisited
       The last couple of days have been two of the tougher ones in quite some time.  It had nothing to do with the illnesses I have battled.  It had nothing to do with a new decade in the sights.  Why, it didn’t even have a thing to do with Teresa!
       I had had two circumstances, one at church and one at work that have been weighing on my mind and heart.  I could relate with the Apostle Paul when he wrote, “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.”  Hum, I think we just sang that last Sunday.
       I’m not at liberty to share the details of either situation, but they both were heavy on me. 
       I have a not-so-crazy belief that stress was a major determinant for me to end up with cancer over 20 years ago and then again almost two years ago.
       Not the normal stresses of life, but what I call “stress of the heart.”  Something that cuts to the core of who you are.  It’s that pit in your stomach that doesn’t go away.
       It’s not depression.  Depression is a rarity for me, if ever.
       It’s more like despair over a circumstance that I can’t change.
       The biggest symptom is the churning in my heart.
      Honestly, the last two years I have worked really hard at trying not to be emotionally involved or emotionally at risk when situations have arisen.  I am sure at times some folks have thought that I have been aloof or uncaring when I haven’t reached out to them because of this concern about the destructive possibilities I’ve felt at times.
       I went to bed knowing that sleep would be a hope more than a reality.  The one time I did fall off to sleep for a few minutes, Oreo decided the old dog needed to go out.  Her, not me.
       I finally rolled out of bed and decided that what I was feeling was no way to live and the worst thing for me, in lots of ways, including my health.
       And I did something that I have never done in my five decades of preaching.  I decided to look at a sermon that I had preached before. 
       Oh, I have looked at past sermons.  There was a time that I had 25 years of preaching at Daybreak in two filing cabinets.  One Saturday the Lord said, “Throw them all in the dumpster.”   Like the grapevine, fruit comes on the new growth.  And I did, without one regret.
       But this time looking at a sermon that I had previously preached was totally different.  I went back and looked at a sermon that I preached for my own benefit.  I had never done that before.
       Last year I preached a series of sermons on peace.  The first one was on peace WITH God.  The second was on the peace OF God.   It was the latter sermon I wanted to see.   I still had it on my computer.
       As I read through that sermon, God did an amazing work in my heart—not because of the sermon, but because of the principles from God’s Word that were in the sermon.
       And by the time that I had read through the sermon, the gift of peace that passes our understanding had flooded my heart.  Gone was the turmoil.  Gone was that pit that I had struggled with for two days.  They had been replaced by the sweet peace of Jesus.
       Being a pastor can be a very tough calling.  I think that Daybreak is more difficult than most because of our unashamed stance for life.   It is the enemy’s greatest area of warfare as we can see in our country.  His attack on our church is more than obvious, just by looking at the heartaches that have come to several people in our church who have been involved at Assurance.
       By the time that I met with someone who was in a far greater crucible than I perceived myself to be, God had brought me to a place where my concern was on their need.  It is where I always want to be as a pastor, though I fall far short of that.
       One of the things that we all know, but at times fail to realize in the moment, is that if our focus is on us and our problems, then it is doubtful that we will ever be able to help someone else.
       The second thing that we know is that the only way that we can come alongside of others is to know the comfort that Jesus brings alongside of us in our times of struggle. 
       It happened to me this morning.  It can happen to you.
     The sermon resonated so much with me this morning that I considered including it at the end of this blog.  I thought that maybe a better plan would be to ask Megan to post it on the church’s website and leave it there for a while.  You never know when you might get one of those pits in your stomach, and it will be there for you to read.
       Daybreak-lex.com
       After finishing the blog, I am wondering if I will get a bill from Mike Courtney for counseling!