The Struggle With Impressing

I am working my way through August, September and into October with my sermon planning. It's become one of those little nuances that come with the position and with my personality type. If I don't plan out for the next three months what passages I am going to preach on I will end up selecting my favorites and avoiding difficult passages to that force me and my congregation to wrestle with God's call in our lives.

Another nuance that I have discovered I have or am admitting too is one of ego. I'm not shy about my ego. You can ask my friends and they will tell you that I am comfortable enough in my own self to be honest when I do something I try to do it well not only because people deserve my best but also because it satisfy my ego. It makes me feel good. It makes me feel important. It also drives me crazy.

During my preparation for Sunday I find myself wrestling with this ego. I try so hard to peer deeply into the scriptures and study as I must and respond with what I believe them to be saying. I think that's something you'd want in a pastor/preacher/minister: Someone who prepares and takes time during the week to be faithful to the scripture passage and not get up and hum and haw around for an hour without making a point. But the struggle comes in the writing and organizing of thoughts.

I have found myself of late wrestling with what I am writing and with how people might respond. There are two groups of people who are responding: my congregation & my friends. I find myself in the midst of my sermonizing trying to get my friends to say something good about my sermons. I struggle with this desire to be considered a brilliant mind and a brilliant theologian. That struggle sometimes leads me to doubt what is being written or what is being said. It's not a new struggle. I've been struggling with it since seminary. Each time I would preach at chapel I struggled with trying to be true to myself and to my interpretation with trying to impress the professors or my colleagues. It's an honest struggle I think ministers all go through.

We struggle to impress and to be noticed while struggling to be true to who we are and who God is creating us to be. We get caught up the emotions of being thought of as smart, brilliant, a head of our time, or just some sort of positive recognition that we sometimes lose track of our circle. We go out of our circle (for what I'm referring to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mcUPY0RMdU) to get approval from those who are not a part of our immediate circle and by doing so we sometimes lose our focus.

It might be hard for someone to read that a pastor struggles with impressing others. The quick response would be, "You only have to impress/honor God." But it misses the point, the question, the reflection. True, God is the only one I have to honor but even seeking to please God or receive some praise from God is a search for praise. The person giving it only changes.

So I sit in my office with my bible open and my blank word document waiting for words to appear. As I start typing, as I start reflecting I will start struggling with how certain people will respond. I take comfort in knowing that I am not alone or the only one. I take comfort in knowing that I have done my best and that's all I can do.

Impressed or not, come Sunday I will preach again.