Its been a busy weekend with a wedding yesterday, followed by a party and then a church service to preach at today.

If you’ve done any preaching you’d know there are days when you are pretty much solely reliant on the power of God. If he doesn’t show up then its gonna be a pretty dreary old day… Now I know that’s supposed to be the case all the time, but let’s be real – its not!

Today was one of those occasions. I was preaching on the passage in Luke where Jesus calls Levi, one of my all time favourites, but I just didn’t have anything fire for me throughout the week. Normally I sense God leading me in a direction very clearly and giving some passion for the message.

This week I must have read that passage 100 times, made 15 pages of notes, but just couldn’t seem to ignite.

I was actually a bit worried this morning when I turned up with a bunch of notes and a few different directions to head in depending on what gelled on the day.

I discovered before the service that two of my stories I had used previously at this church, so I ditched them, I had a story about a particular racial group, but it was a sensitive story and given that a family from that particular African country just happened to be in church that day, I felt I should ditch it as well. The pastor used another story on the front of the church bulletin… It was looking grim!

I don’t think its bad to feel confident when you communicate in public, but this was one of those times when my personal confidence was fairly screwed!

The prayers from me were ‘God – if today hits anyone it will really be down to you…’. At the same time as I felt nervous, I felt a degree of calm because over the years I have been amazed at what God does with what I would regard as garbage preaching.

Anyway – either the people were just being polite or he did speak to some because the feedback seemed genuinely positive.

Its never nice being forced to depend on God. Learning that line between my endeavour and his power is always a tension.