My Brief Encounter With Public Speaking

After 24 hours of preparation and 7 days of anxiety I have delivered my first message of sorts. Well, it wasn't exactly a message, but more of a lesson and discussion. Jess keeps promising me that it went well, but I am still somewhat skeptical. Anyway, I decided to speak on something that has become near and dear to my heart; grace. When I down to prepare, I kept thinking of the woman caught in adultry as an appropriate example of Jesus' grace. However, this same story had just been discussed at camp and I felt that it might not be received if they felt like I was recyclilng stories. Then I decided that I would go back to Phillip Yancey's "What's So Amazing About Grace", but alas, I must have leant it to my father as it was no where to be found. Of course, at this same time, I couldn't find my Bible with the concordance (all I could find was my yearly Bible that I have been using) and my mind was blanking as to any stories about grace except for the Cross. I am not saying that this is not a great example of grace, since it is the example, but I wanted to tie it in with many other stories. Then I remembered that I had just unearthed a box of books from my garage. So, I went out to the garage at 12:30 am (you must understand the garage is detached from the house, thus I had to walk across the dirt while being followed my an excited lab pup who was thinking that we were going to play frisbee). It was there I found Brennan Manning's "The Ragamuffin Gospel". Now if you haven't read this book, it is a must. Manning is just so down to earth and straight forward. Anyway, it was here that I was able to come up with some resemblance of a lesson.

First we looked at Matthew 9:9-13. This is a neat story because it is where Jesus talks about the health not needing a doctor and that he came for those on the "outside" (according to "The Message" translation). As Manning puts it, " Here is revelatioin bright as the evening star: Jesus comes for sinners, for those as outcast as tax collectors and for those caught up in squalid choices and failed dreams" (1990, p. 23). He goes on to say a whole lot more, but I really like that part about the failed dreams. Who hasn't experienced a failed ream or poor choice? Then I went on to Epesians 2:4-10. Here one of the parts talked about is accepting God's gift of grace. An analogy that came to me as I was running through this with Jess was that God's grace was like a Christmas present - sure it looks great in wrapping paper, but the gift itself is no good unless you open it and decide to use it. What is salvation if we don't accept it for ourselves. Then we looked at II Corinthians 12:9-10 where Paul is talking about the thorn it his side and how God spoke to him tellilng him that He [God] would be his strength in weakness. How many times have we wondered how God can possibly use us because of some fault that we have, but God never asked for perfection, by His grace we get to work in His perfection. Lastly we went to Philippians 4 and looked at running the race that God has set before us.

Anyway, as this whole lesson was going on I couldn't tell if the kids were really getting it or not. I do know however that when I was praying last night, I felt that this is what God wanted me to talk about, so I did it. As we were looking at II Corinthians, I was thinking to myself that this was all a God thing. I am really terrible at talking in front of groups, but I knew that this was something that I needed and really wanted to do. I kind of just handed it to God and told Him to work in me as it would be a total failure without his strength. Anyway, I just wanted to share with you all, my friends and family, what God had laid on my heart last night. So much of faith is experiences like this - stepping out on a limb in areas that we are total failures and letting God take all the glory!