What’s Your Point?

I knew it as the words were coming out of my mouth–too late to do anything about it. 

My sermon went on too long today, just about a paragraph and a half too long, but too long nonetheless.  I’d already made the point I wanted to leave with the congregation, and then . . . I added something else, which had the unfortunate effect of taking away from the point. 

Once the words are out, of course, you can’t take them back.  So, here’s one more try at making my point.

“There will come a time, if there hasn’t already, in your life and my life when we are going to have to face the painful truth about our lives, all the little secrets and failures that nobody else can see if we want to go any further toward the promise of who we are. And when that time comes, when we find ourselves on the mat, up all night wrestling with God, this we know: it’s not our decisions or our posturing or our plans that determine the future. It’s God . . . who, no matter what mistakes we’ve made, will not abandon us to our own devices.

No, God will wrestle us down, over and over and over again, all night long if that’s what it takes, demand that we surrender everything about who we are and who we hope to be, until the sun rises and we’re ready to face the truth and we grab the hand of God to pull us up and we limp toward the promise of our lives.

Amen!”