My Next Chapter

This is it! The week before my first sermon, which I am excited and nervous for all at once. I did my first run through today with a good friend of mine, I was surprised when he said that he liked. He gave me a good few suggestions and I will employ them for the rest of the week as I have scheduled different people to preach to this week. I was taught in my preaching class that you should preach you sermon three times before you preach on Sunday, right now I am going to be preaching it at least five times, which will help me to feel more confident. I know that Satan has been trying to get into my head and trying to tell me that I am going to do horrible, but I know that preaching is not about me, it's about letting God speak through me, I am just a mere vessel and I know that I am not worthy to preach, but the grace and mercy of God is so awesome. The Lord has provided me with much wisdom for this message, I have talked with other pastor's about their first sermons and I heard the greatest advice, they said that I don't need to worry about it being great, I just need to focus on getting through it! My hope and desire is that my first sermon is the worst one I ever preach, because I want to grow each time I preach!

I have the best friends in the world. I turned 26 over the weekend and it was great being around all of them for my birthday and seeing all the myspace and facebook and happy birthday text messages. I had a great time at my party we all rocked out on rock band, and then we played one of the most amazing games ever, which is called Telephone pictionary it was rad!!! I can't believe that I passed the hump point to 30!! I know that I am in a good place right now, I just need to find a Godly woman!! which will happen in the Lord's timing and not my own, as much I wish it was my own timing. God has been using my singleness to help me grow in Him and to mature as a leader, I want to be able to be my wife's hero (underneath Jesus of course, who is the ultimate hero) I want to remain pure for her and her for me. I want our marriage to based upon the Rock of Salvation and our needs to come second, I want to be able to serve her and cherish her and honor her, and provide for her with all that is within me. It will be great to have a ministry partner. (I don't know where, this all came from... see the Lord is teaching me a lot about relationships right now even though I am not in one at the time)!!! Also this will be a great time to see what God has in store for me ministry wise, I know that God has called me to be a lead pastor (senior pastor to you baptists out there!!) Now I am just waiting on His timing for it to happen, I feel that it is probably a year or two away, but it's about God's will not mine.