Wondering What to Say?

I had one of those nights last night.  One where I woke up in the middle of the night, stressed about getting everything that's on my plate done.  I won't bore you with all of the details of things I need to do, because I'm sure most of you are or have been in the same boat.  But one detail is pertinent: I'd been struggling with what to preach on Christmas Eve.

I'm sure I'm not the only one; many (if not most?) pastors struggle to say something unique and relevant on Christmas Eve and Easter.  We want to figure out new and fresh ways at Christmas to tell of the birth of Jesus Christ and at Easter to tell of His resurrection.

Yesterday I was puzzling over a sermon that just would not write itself.  I had come up with what I thought was a really good idea (which I'm still going to stick into my "idea bank" to preach another time) but it just wasn't coming along at all. 

This morning in my prayers, I asked God to help me know what I should preach.  As I prayed, the sermon idea immediately came into my head.  Of course, about 180 degrees away from what I'd already been struggling to write.

Then when I opened my igoogle homepage this morning (that's a page that has all of my Google applications all in one place; my Google Reader (blog reader), my gmail, weather, news, etc), the first item on my reader was a blog post by Perry Noble.

In it, he was talking about how his little daughter repeats everything he says.  Then he wrote this:

Hey pastor…are you stressing out about what you are going to say for your upcoming Christmas service?

Why not just do what my little girl does…just listen to your Father and then repeat what He says!

What a great reminder.