The Mental Block

Every year, I try to plan my sermons well in advance so that our wonderful musicians have time to prep the choirs, bands, and so forth. Most of the time, I can stay a few months ahead, but every year I have the same issue – I get a block in December! Once I work past December, the block lifts and I can push ahead again.

This is such a frequent occurrence for me that I no longer shake my head at it, but accept it as a routine, with apologies to Mark and Larissa. However, as many of you might point out: “A failure to plan is a plan to fail.” So I have found some workarounds.

The first workaround is that the first two Sundays of January are always set ahead of time. The first Sunday is Epiphany, or “Three Kings Sunday.” And the second is Baptismal renewal, or “Baptism of the Lord.” Those two weeks give me a little cushion.

The second workaround is for me to realize that just because I want to have the best Christmas Eve sermons I can possibly produce, if what follows Christmas Eve isn’t significant, then it doesn’t matter. Sure, we all have special days in our lives, days that we want to be especially good – perhaps birthdays, anniversaries, and the like. But most of our lives are lived in ordinary days. What makes those days special is not some secret sauce, but realizing that “with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day.” (2 Peter 3:8) In other words, every day is a special day when we walk with the Lord. Every day is a chance to learn, to grow, to be stretched, and to witness the goodness of God. After all, isn’t the real meaning of Christmas that God took on human flesh in order to transform us, and transformation into maturity (“the full measure of the stature of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13)), not just getting older, is what our lives are about? The babe in the manger is lovely to look at and think about – but how that babe has changed everything is what we are here to experience.

Perhaps you are like me, and you experience “glitches” in your plans or roadblocks that seem to prevent you from moving forward. If so, take heart – you are just as human as Jesus was! And step forward, knowing that even if you can’t see the way in front of you, Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. (John 14:6)