Sunday

Sunday is here again. If you are a pastor, it seems like Sunday comes three times a week. Non-stop pressure. Time to preach, and it better be good. Well, that is bad enough when things are going well, but it is much worse, or it seems worse when there are problems.

Problems. Kids with problems, members with problems, employees with problems. You still have to be at church at 6am to get it all going.

So today, at 5:55 I am walking in the dark from the place where the pastor parks, thinking about problems, challenges. I notice something that needs to be taken care of. I continue my walk. I am in between the gym and the playground and out of the corner of my eye I see it. Something dark, darting across the parking lot. Next to the curb. A cat? A skunk? Armadillo? Some sort of ghostly gobinly alien thing that is here to abduct or scare an old man.

Then I see it. The dark object is a shadow. It is the shadow of my own head. The light from the corner of the gym and my own brisk walk have delivered the shadowy object to the corner of my line of site. I was afraid of my own head.

And God speaks. Most of what we worry about is a shadow. A nothing. A here for a moment and then gone. Release the worry. let it go. Get back on task, it is 5:58 and God's work awaits. Not just for preachers, but for all of us, God's work awaits. Let the shadows go.

It's a beautiful day in God's world, be sure to see the good.