Today I Don't Want To Be A Preacher

Today I Don't Want To Be A Preacher

6/27/02 12:08 pm

Lord, I am extremely grateful to you for redeeming my lost soul and for the daily assurance of your love and grace.  I am more conscious of that need today than I was when I first experienced you as a Divine stranger.  I didn't know you at all when I first met you.  I read about you and wonderful folks taught me about you.  But I was consumed and haunted by my "lost-ness" and I feared damnation, and I felt worthless and substandard socially.  It was all about me and I was driven to you.  I wanted "heart relief" but I knew that you wanted me to be a preacher.  That was a hurdle because I wanted to make something of myself.  I was raised poor, preachers made a decision to stay that way.  I had never met a preacher that made me want to be one.  They were too stiff and serious and visiting God's house was like going to see my stern aunt.  I would sit for endless hours (or so it seemed) while the adults chatted about adult things that were of no concern to me.  When I would rest my head against the wall, my aunt would bark, "Don't lean your head there - you'll leave a grease spot."  I already felt dirty.  We were raised without an indoor bathroom and this comment just reminded me that the worthlessness that I felt deeply could not be hidden.

People come to church like this week after week to be reminded of  their "dirtiness".  They go away discouraged and they don't want to come back - but they do and they don't know why.  Some people give up after a while.  Over all it hasn't been a pleasant experience.

It wasn't the church that helped me to really discover Christ.  It was a young vibrant teen who played the guitar, laughed in God's house and made faith seem appealing to me.  I remember bein excited to think that perhaps I could serve God and