January 7 – “On Being Discombobulated”

Pretty good day at church yesterday.  Well, except that I had an unusual sense of disconcertedness come over me during the sermon.  Discombobulated, even.  Very strange feeling.  It was a fairly difficult passage from Ephesians about Jesus bringing Jewish and Gentile believers into one as a new creation called the Church.  I had done my research, so the difficulty of the passage wasn’t the issue.  But about halfway through something was just nagging at me.  It wasn’t one of those “Is my fly open?” moments.  Something just seemed to be … off.  It got to be so strong that I wound up the teaching and moved on to the praise segment of the service.  After the service I had several different folks approach me to say something specific from the teaching had really touched them.  And the “specific”?  It came from that finally summary part of the teaching.  Had to be God.  Sigh.  A pastor’s life is just … weird.

After church we did the Un-hanging of the greens.  That means taking down the Christmas decorations and storing them away.  Lots of folks stayed, so it really didn’t take all that long.  We joined a few Seasiders at the restaurant in Jamaica Beach for lunch.  I had a patty melt.  Pretty good stuff.  Don’t think I would order it next time, though.  I don’t particularly like the taste of rye bread.  I do recommend the restaurant – Way Out West (I think).  Nice folks.

The rest of the day was spent dozing while some more teams tried to advance in the football playoffs.  I did take a walk with Chris in the evening.  Made it all the way around the block.  Guess all those WalMart trips are paying off.  Here we go …

Psalms 123:1 says, “I lift up my eyes to you, to you whose throne is in heaven.”

Father, thank you for discombobulated moments when you take over.  Disconcerting for me.  Good for your kingdom.  And thank you for the folks who stayed to help on Sunday.  Sure made the task at hand easier.  Amen.