So my name is Carl O'Donnell and I
pastor the Pembroke Baptist Church, which is just
across the St. John River from Woodstock, New
Brunswick.
And even though we're a small number here
today, here at Lincoln, apparently there's folks that
are watching online and so on, not just
today live, but in the future we'll be
watching this.
I do want to say before I forget,
my email address is Black Salmon Lad.
I'm from the Miramichi.
There's a lady here from over in Sunny
Corner and I used to fish a lot
of black salmon on the Miramichi and everybody's
a lad on the Miramichi.
So that's my email address, BlackSalmonLad at gmail
.com and I'd love to hear from you.
So I'll get that out of the way.
There's people praying for me today and I
really appreciate it.
There really are people praying for me.
They've been texting me all day and yesterday
saying they're praying for me, people from the
church that I pastor, family and friends, and
I'm just so grateful to be here.
And they're all saying the same thing to
me, just be yourself, just be yourself.
That's what I'm gonna try to do, be
myself.
My wife said I'm proud of you and
get a haircut.
So I got a haircut and I'm glad
she's proud of me.
I know this is a revival conference and
we've had all kinds of wonderful speakers on
revival but they don't have the information that
I have because I found the recipe for
revival.
I brought it with me, it's only a
page and a half and here it is.
I'm going to read it to you.
This is the recipe for revival.
Up in the hills of old Kentucky, the
meanest place that ever was struck, there lived
a man named Jacob Job, the meanest man
on this old globe.
He feared not God nor cared for man
except his wild and wicked clan.
He had six boys, both big and bad,
who followed right behind their dad.
They drank that wildcat whiskey down and painted
red the country town.
He had six gals, big husky gals, who
pranced and frolicked with their pals.
They danced and capered on the hills and
sometimes tippled at the stills.
One day an awful rattlesnake bit that oldest
boy, big wicked Jake, and through his veins
the virus flew.
He's bound to die, what will we do?
In haste they sent a runner down to
fetch a parson from the town, a Dutchman
of John Wesley's band, as good as any
in the land.
He prayed a wondrous, curious prayer in words
of faith both rich and rare, and if
to heaven it reached or not, on earth
it surely hit the spot.
Oh God, he prayed, we thank thee for
this snake that thou hast sent to bite
old Jake, to fetch him down from his
high hoss and lead him to the Savior's
cross.
And now, oh God, the great I am,
please send another to bite old Sam.
And Jack and John, the worst of rakes,
oh God, we need more rattlesnakes.
Send chicken snakes to bite the gals and
all their dancing wicked pals.
Even Mama Jobe, she needs one too, perhaps
a copperhead will do.
And now, oh God, before it's too late,
please hurry up these gospel snakes, and save
this old Kentucky state.
I ask it all for Jesus' sake, amen.
The theme of my talk today is, you
see it behind you on the screen there,
stop trying harder, start making better choices.
Sometimes that only happens when we're on the
flat of our back, that we, God has
our attention.
Sometimes revival only happens when we're about at
our wits end, and we feel like we're
so far away from revival, we feel like
we're just drained, but we don't realize we're
just a whisker away from revival when we're
at our lowest.
It was advertised as a church planters assessment
for couples many years ago, and it was
taking place at Kingswood University in Sussex.
And it was for couples that were interested
in going for one week, you stayed on
campus, there was 12 or 14 professional people
there to see what made you tick.
There was a Christian psychologist, there were denominational
leaders, all kinds of really caring, loving staff
there to analyze as many as 10 couples
that could go for the week to go
to this spiritual boot camp.
The cost was $1,000, and I said
to my wife, if I'm going to shell
out a thousand bucks, I want somebody when
it's all over to really tell me how
I did.
Don't just pass me, tell me how I
really made out, don't give everybody a gold
star.
So we signed up, and the meals were
excellent, the accommodations were excellent, and you had
eight hours to sleep, but other than that,
you were being analyzed and scrutinized and put
through your paces.
They put you on purpose with other couples
that they thought maybe you didn't quite think
the same way.
They put you in situations that were stressful
and under a deadline, and to see how
you would do.
You'd be eating your toast in the morning
and look up and somebody would be looking
at you with a pencil writing on a
notepad.
You just were analyzed in every way.
That's what it was for, to see what
makes you tick.
Well, the week went by, and so at
the end was an exit interview, where they
would take each couple privately into the boardroom
there at the university, and they'd sit you
down, and there'd be three or four of
these assessors would sit with you, and in
the most kind and loving and caring way,
they would tell you how you did or
didn't do on the week.
So we sat there in a couple black
leather chairs, and three or four gentlemen in
suits sat across from us, and they began
to give my wife Melanie her test results,
what the assessors had thought of her.
This was probably a half an hour process,
and she aced it.
She aced the thing.
They said, if you were here for another
week, you'd be part of our assessment team,
and I thought, wait till they get to
me.
They turned to me and they said, you
know, Carl, in some ways you're off the
charts in a positive way, but then there's
this other group of things in your life
that somehow you don't seem to take seriously,
but we want you to know that those
are things you need to take seriously, and
of course those were things that my wife
had been telling me all my life I
should take seriously, and now I was paying
a thousand dollars for these guys to...
So I sat there, you know, just with
a stunned look on my face, and as
they spent that half an hour in a
kind, loving way, trying to help me, trying
to help me, and they said, you know,
only one assessor out of 14 assessors recommends
that you would pursue planting new churches, continuing
on in that way.
I didn't know what to say, didn't know
what to do.
Oh, it was things like, I was in
charge of the money back then, of our
family income, and every bill got paid, but
it got paid late every time, and of
course I'd be at work, who would get
the phone calls, you know, and I would
say to my wife, you know, the car's
fine, just don't fill it more than half
full, or the gas tank will leak, you
know, so don't worry about it.
Just stuff like that.
There was dozens and dozens of things like
that, because I thought I was too busy
preaching, I thought I was too busy trying
to be three places at one time, I
had too many firecrackers that I was trying
to light all the time, and don't bother
me with trivial things, I'm trying to do
the Lord's work.
That was the way I thought, and I'm
ashamed to say that, you know, things like
following through didn't seem like they were important
to me.
Things like keeping my word didn't seem like
it was that big of a deal, because
I had important stuff, you know, God's work
to do.
Anyway, we had this exit interview, and then
that was the end of the week, so
we stood up, probably they prayed with us,
I don't remember, but we shook a few
hands, and I went upstairs in the university
to my friend's office.
He was one of the professors.
I'd been taking a course on church planting,
and his name is Vic Stonehouse.
I went up to Vic's office, and I
was guessing he was the guy that had
voted for me to proceed.
He was a friend of mine, and he
was one of those assessors.
We walked in the room, and he just
burst into tears, and Vic just burst into
tears.
He could not stop crying.
He just kept taking Kleenexes and putting them
up to his face, and I know now
why.
It's because he felt so bad that I
had tried so hard.
I had been driving to Sussex from Carleton
County.
I'd been staying overnight with he and Joan,
and I'd been paying attention.
I'd been working so hard, trying so hard,
and it just ended in a big train
wreck, and there was my dear brother, Vic
Stonehouse, just weeping.
He couldn't stop crying, so my wife and
I excused herself, and we went down to
get in the car to leave.
I had an old Toyota Camry then, and
turned the key, the car wouldn't start.
Every time it threatened to rain, that car
would not start because the distributor cap was
cracked, but it was one of those things,
you know, I said, I'm too busy working
on a message.
I'm too busy trying to do this.
Don't worry about the car, so there I
sit.
It's clouding over, and the car won't start.
Back I go with my hat in my
hand to ask those pastors and psychologists and
denominational leaders, is there a few of them
could push me off the property?
So it was a standard car.
You put it in second gear, turn the
key halfway, and there's a hill as you
leave Bethany Bible School, Kingswood.
They got me, you know, I can still
see in the rear view mirror those guys
in suits pushing me off the property, and
that thousand dollars just bulging out of their
pocket.
Anyway, I started down the little hill, popped
the clutch, and we started to drive back
home to Fredericton and on north up to
Carlton County.
My wife told me later she thought I
was going to go into a depression.
We drove along, you know, we didn't say
too much, and I was just trying to
think about all this, and the sun came
out, and we got to Fredericton, and we
said, I don't know if it was her
or I, but one of us said maybe
we should stop a Canadian Tire and get
a distributor cap, and the first thing went
through my mind, well it's sunny now, the
car is working great, you know, and but
that's just the way I thought, you see.
I don't have the money, I'm too busy,
I got too many things to do, you
know, maybe something will come up, I don't
know.
You know what it's like to think wrong,
don't you?
Don't you know what it's like to think
wrong about certain things?
You don't know why, you just get, you
just get thinking in wrong patterns about something.
Maybe it's setting boundaries, you know, and that's
just something that it's just such a mountain
for you to grasp, or maybe it's forgiveness,
or maybe it's, you know, a million things,
and we know it's easy to think wrong
about stuff.
So we pulled into Canadian Tire and I
said, well let's stop and see how much
they are anyway, and I get out of
the car.
I was, I was just this close to
being in tears anyway.
I get out of the car and ripped
the entire seat out of my pants.
It was a pair of brown corduroys that
I always wore to baptize people, and I
just ripped the whole seat out of my
pants, and I put on a jacket and
walked into Canadian Tire and my wife was
in the car.
I know it sounds funny, but it wasn't
funny at the time.
Oh, I was really, I was devastated.
I was tore up, I was tore right
to pieces.
Talk about being far from revival, you know,
you've come to these meetings thinking, man, I
want to be revived, I want to be
revived, and you might feel like you're far
from revival.
I couldn't have felt any farther from revival,
but little did I know that I was
just a hair away from revival.
Isn't that interesting?
You know, wherever you're at today, don't feel
like you're a million miles away from being
revived.
Don't feel like your church is a million
miles away from being revived, because quite often,
you know, it's, it's, we have to stop
trying harder before God can even get our
attention, and sometimes the only time we stop
trying harder is when we find ourselves in
a real pickle.
That's where I was in there with my
coat on, my wife's in the car, we
just left the college an hour ago, and
I'm standing at the parts desk at Canadian
Tire, and I wish I could take every
one of you right there, because I could
tell you right exactly where I was standing.
They've changed the parts counter now, but it
wasn't that long ago, I went and stood
right in the aisle to that spot, which
was just feet from where I stood there
that day, because I stood there thinking, this
is crazy.
I don't have the money, I don't have
the time to be standing here, they're busy,
and, and yet I was wrestling with what
my wife was probably out in the car
praying about, and what those brothers that loved
me had just told me, you know.
So the guy comes up and he says
$67.12 or something like that, and I
thought, holy Toledo.
Anyway, I bought it, got it back in
the car and drove home.
Well, the next day or two, I was
up early, the kids were just little then,
and it wasn't quite time for me to
wake them up, and I had a little
fire going in the stove there in our,
in our mini home, in our living room,
a little fire going in the glass stove,
and I was sitting in a green Lazy
Boy chair there, and everybody was asleep, and
I was thinking about all this, and I
was thinking, this is what I was saying
to myself, Carl, you've got to try harder.
You know these things, these things they've told
you?
You've got to try harder in your personal
life, in your pastoring life, and I started
making a mental list about all these things.
I've got to try harder to do this
and this, and then all of a sudden,
I just felt this just weight just began
to settle in on my head, and I
thought, you know what, I've been trying harder
all my life to do these things, and
it's not working, it's not working, and I
got all teared up, you know, there sitting
there by myself, and I thought, what do
I do?
What do I do?
I just bought a new living translation of
the Bible.
I'd never had one before, and I, they
were just fairly new then, and I had
bought a New Testament there, and it was
laying open to the Sermon on the Mount,
the Beatitudes in Matthew chapter 5, and we
all think of the Sermon on the Mount,
that first Beatitude is, blessed are the poor
in spirit, and Sarah's going to put up
on the screen there right behind me.
If you look in the New Living Translation,
it says, blessed are those that realize their
need for Him, Matthew 5 and verse 3,
and those notes behind me are from the
David Jeremiah Study Bible.
At the bottom of the page, it describes
what it means to be poor in spirit.
The humble, those with destitute hearts, sense their
spiritual need and seek after God.
They have the advantage, and I asked Sarah
to put that in capitals, the advantage and
the great joy of being able to cry
out to God for help, and I looked
at that verse there in Matthew 5 verse
3, the first of the Beatitudes, the blessed
are the poor in spirit, and I thought,
that's not a sermon for you to preach,
Carl, that's for you, that's for you right
now, that's for you as a Christian, and
God spoke to me right at that moment,
and He said, Carl, stop trying harder, start
making better choices, stop trying harder on your
own, start making better choices as I help
you, and I don't know if that means
a thing to you or not, but to
me, there's two different worlds, trying harder versus
making better choices with God's help, and I
can't tell you, but that little, that little
mini home with the fire and that green
chair became my place of revival.
Revival began because I began to think a
little bit differently.
Here, just minutes ago, just 30 seconds before
that, I felt like just the weight of
the world was on my shoulders, and all
of a sudden, I'm in revival, because God
spoke to me through His Word and by
His Holy Spirit, stop trying harder, start making
better choices.
Well, that began one of hundreds and hundreds,
and right up till even to today, me
trying to ask God, can you help me,
Lord, because I always want to revert back
to that trying harder business.
Can you help me?
And that's my prayer.
It has to be my prayer on a
regular basis, or every time I try harder,
I fall flat on my face, but when
I step back, say, God, let's look at
the big picture here.
God helps me.
I make better choices.
I'm all for living in the moment.
I'm going to get Sarah to put that,
take that back off and go back to
our title, stop trying harder and start making
better choices, and it's such a difference, such
a difference in practical ways and in spiritual
ways, too.
It's a whole different way to live.
For instance, in practical ways, I get up
from the green chair, and we got the
kids off to school, and I said to
my wife, can we get our power bill
on equalized billing?
She said, sure, we can get it on
equalized billing.
It was a practical thing that we could
do.
We put our power bill on equalized billing.
It was the same every month.
I could handle that.
I was still running the money back then.
I could handle that.
I didn't have to try harder to, you
know what I mean?
That was one practical thing.
We started paying with cash for things more.
I'm not saying this is what you have
to do.
I'm just saying not using cash, using credit
wasn't working for me.
Trying to pay my power bill when it
came in the mail wasn't working for me.
I did it, but it was always late,
as I said.
Other practical ways, when I'd say to people,
I'll get back to you, that wasn't working
for me because I had too many irons
in the fire, spinning too many plates.
You know what that's like to have so
many plates you're spinning all the time, and
you don't know how many people you've said,
leave that with me, will you?
I'll get back to you.
That stuff wasn't working for me.
It wasn't working for me as a pastor,
as a husband, in dealing with my kids,
making promises, and I had to stop that.
I had to say, Lord, I can't try
harder to have a better memory.
I can't try harder to follow through with
things.
You and I have to figure this out,
Lord, how I can make better choices that
will help me, and that's what I'm here
to talk to you today about.
I don't like to talk about the way
I used to think.
I don't like to talk about the old
Carl and the way I used to be,
but in one sense it's a reminder to
me what God has done, and so I
just share it today to say God wants
to, he's no respecter of persons, God wants
to do amazing things in us and meet
us right where we're at.
So, in spiritual ways, as a pastor, and
I hope there's pastors listening and watching online,
and I'm sure there are pastors here and
Christian leaders as well.
In practical ways, one of the bags of
rocks that I carried around as a pastor
was sermon preparation.
Almost every week I'd say, I've got to
try harder next week to be better prepared.
You get up Monday morning, your feet hit
the floor, you're a pastor, you like to
visit with people, the phone rings, you love
it, you love to be with people, you
love to pray and be going and doing
and fellowshipping with other pastors and so on,
but hardly a week went by there for
those first ten years of my being in
full-time ministry that I wouldn't say, I've
got to try harder to get my act
together earlier in the week and be better
prepared for what I've got to say.
And so God and I began to talk
about this because I'd beat myself up and
all that stuff.
You have issues in your life that you're
trying harder on, right?
You beat yourself up on them.
Like Dr. Phil says, how's that working out
for you, you know?
It wasn't working out very good for me.
Being a pastor was a stressful thing.
There were some Sunday mornings I had to
call my father-in-law, Jack Salmon.
He's long gone now, but I'd say, Jack,
I've worked all week, I haven't been lazy,
but I just don't have it together.
And this is like five o'clock in
the morning.
He'd show up at 11 o'clock and
preach for me, you know?
And I'd say to the congregation, you know,
just pray for me, pray for me, pray
for me.
Stuff like that.
So this is part of the reason why
Greg Gordon asked me to speak today, because
Greg thinks I have a unique sermon preparation
plan in place.
Now I've never heard of any other pastor
that does this, but I'm sure there are
other pastors that do it.
But this is what the Lord and I
have going on.
On Monday mornings, I get up, my mind
is blank, as it normally is, but it's
an extra blank on Monday mornings.
I get up before breakfast, just like you
do, and I start to do my own
personal devotions.
And through that, I feel, if God is
speaking to me about this, maybe God wants
to speak to somebody else about it.
So I start writing some notes to go
towards my message.
If it's speaking to me, a thought, a
text, or whatever, I think God will speak
to somebody else.
So I have set myself up on a
schedule where every Monday, I have to preach
at 1.30 to 80 to 100 people,
every Monday at 1.30 in the afternoon.
And on Monday morning, when I get up,
I have no message, but by noon, when
I get ready to leave the house, the
Lord and I have worked that out together,
and I've discovered I can be just as
inspired on Monday morning at 7 as I
can Saturday night at midnight.
I can be just as inspired.
And so I generally preach to that group
at the seniors' home in Woodstock and their
families.
We have a church service there every Monday
at 1.30, and I hardly use any
notes, maybe just three or four sentences, but
I'm just sharing what God has been speaking
to my heart about.
Then, this is the part that Greg especially
wanted me to share, is then on Monday
nights, there's a group that meets in someone's
home, and it's open to anyone in the
church, so there's usually about a dozen people
show up, and I say to them, this
is what I may be preaching on on
Sunday.
I've already preached it this afternoon to a
group of seniors and their families, but this
is what I'll probably be preaching on Sunday.
What do you think of that?
How is God speaking to you from this
text?
How is God speaking to you from this
thought?
And so we pray and do sort of
a Lectio Divina-style Bible study where we'll
pray, then we'll read the verses, and then
we'll pray again, and then we'll say, this
is a verse that God's speaking to me
about.
And I'll just sit there with a blank
piece of paper and just start writing notes.
I show up every week to that meeting
with just a blank piece of paper and
just start writing notes.
And we have two 20-year-old young
ladies that attend that, Nolly and Anita, and
they'll start saying, you know, this is what
God would say to me from what you're
talking about, Pastor Carl, and they'll start sharing
things, you know, how it applies to them,
and I'll start writing stuff out.
Their grandparents, Norton and Annie, are there.
They're in their mid-70s, and they say,
this is how this verse is speaking to
me.
Verse 3 is speaking to me, or verse
5, and they'll share that.
Then I have a friend there, Rex.
He's of a different denomination.
And he's there, and he'll say, well, you
know, this is what the Lord is saying
to me from this verse.
This is what I get out of this.
And I'm just writing.
I can't write fast enough.
I cannot write fast enough, Pat, on Monday
nights, as I'm just feeling blessed, because these
people are saying, God's Word is speaking to
me, and I'm just, the smoke's just coming
right off my pen.
And we're together, we're building the message for
Sunday.
Greg says that's unusual.
And it works for me.
I'm not saying you have to do it,
pastors, but I'm saying it works for me,
because for 10 years before that, I carried
around a bag of rocks, said, Carl, if
you just tried harder to get your act
together on sermon preparation, you'd do a better
job.
If you were doing a better job, the
church would be full, the bills would be
paid, the treasurer would be happy, revival would
be, but it all was on my shoulders.
Just try harder.
I just thank God that he said to
me that day, Carl, stop trying harder.
Start making better choices.
I can't tell you what that's meant in
my life.
I wouldn't be here today, that's for sure.
I would be showing up in church somewhere,
I wouldn't be a pastor, but I'd be
sitting somewhere in the church, probably in the
back row, and I'd be, every Sunday, saying,
Lord, I just wish I could try harder,
because look at all these people that are
doing so much better than me.
And I'd be beating myself up, week in,
week out, trying harder.
I'm so glad that's not what the Christian
life is.
Aren't you glad that's not what following Jesus
is, trying harder?
It's making choices with God's help, God helping
us, helping us see the big picture.
So for the last 15 years, this is
how I've been preparing sermons.
A good friend of mine was in a
session one time, and somebody floated the idea
about getting other people to help pastors get
their messages ready.
And I really respect this guy, and he
said, wouldn't that turn into a sermon stew?
Wouldn't that be just a hodgepodge of ideas
and stuff?
And that's never happened.
It's never happened.
We're in one mind, one accord.
And sometimes I don't use, maybe don't even
use that message.
In fact, some Monday nights, as we get
discussing it, I realize, you know what, this
isn't a topic that I'm ready to preach
on yet, because I don't know what I'm
talking about.
And that's a great help, too.
Better before than after the message is preached,
right?
I just thank God, because I have enjoyed
being a pastor so much these last 15
years.
Well, it's actually about 20 years now.
I've been pastoring full time now for a
little over 30 years.
And the last 20 years of doing these
things, being a pastor has been such a
blessing and such a joy.
And as Andrew and I were talking earlier,
Andrew said, the thing that jumps out at
me is that, wouldn't that be helpful to
this 12 people that show up?
And I said, you bet.
Your life it is.
We're doing devotions together.
We're studying God's word together.
We're applying it together, praying for one another.
Before we leave, you know, the conclusion of
that is in that Lectio Divina style is,
what am I going to do about that?
How does God want me to apply this
verse?
And so we share that, pray for one
another, and out we go out the door.
That's a little bit of my sermon preparation,
making better choices.
For me, that was God helping me make
a better choice.
Maybe God wanted me to stay in the
ministry, to stay being a pastor.
And he said, I've got to help this
guy out here.
He's trying harder, and he's blowing it.
And so this is how God has helped
me.
And I pray that it might help somebody
else.
It feels like sermon preparation.
You love it, but it's like carrying a
big sack of rocks around.
Another thing is visiting people, visitation.
I love to visit people, and I love
to be around people.
But it's difficult.
How am I going to visit a 50
-year-old lady that starts coming to our
church who's a professional person?
How am I going to start visiting a
22-year-old girl that starts coming?
To get my wife's schedule, to coordinate with
mine, and then with that young working person,
it's next to impossible.
And so, again, I thought, I've got to
try harder.
I've got to try harder to be better
at visitation and all that stuff.
And the harder I tried, the worse things
went.
And just recently, within the last year or
so, I realized one day, one Monday I
got up and I said, I've got to
visit so-and-so.
And I started writing down names.
And I had 25 people's names written down
that were new people to our church.
Or if they weren't coming to our church,
they were calling me or texting me, asking
me spiritual questions.
So at that point, there was 25 new
people.
And I started to revert back to that
trying harder.
I thought, I've got to try really hard
to befriend all these 25 people, build relationships
with them, and get them on board.
And then I realized, no, Carl, that's the
old way of thinking.
That's the old way of thinking.
So I began to pray about it.
And God reminded me when I was down
in Florida a couple of years ago at
the Brooksville Wesleyan Church.
We stepped in there that first Sunday.
My wife and I were down there for
four or five weeks on a vacation.
And it was a church of 700 people.
Jerry Pence is the pastor.
And I'm sitting there thinking, wow, their choir
loft here is as big as our church.
And I'm thinking how nice it is, but
how impersonal it is.
And just now, Pastor Jerry Pence says, if
anyone's here today, you came to church and
you're praying for someone, there's someone that's heavy
on your heart, or you have a prayer
request, while this song is being sung and
while one of our pastors is praying, we'd
like you to come forward.
It was right in the middle of the
service, maybe even 15 minutes into the service.
And they said, you can kneel or sit
at the front here, and someone will pray
with you.
And I was the first guy on my
feet.
There was someone on my mind that I
was praying about.
I was tightened up in my stomach about
something.
And all of a sudden, that church of
700 people became just as personal as the
little country church.
And I was the first guy up there.
Someone prayed with me.
And I went back to my seat feeling
like I had really connected with somebody.
And we started doing that in our church.
I looked at that.
I looked at that list of 25 people,
and I thought, there's no way that's going
to happen, that I'm going to be able
to minister to those people one-on-one
like I'd like.
I told that story one Sunday in church
that I just told you.
And I said, someone's coming to lead in
a song.
And if anybody wants to come forward in
our church and sit on the front row,
I'll go down and pray with you for
a moment or two while the song is
being sung, and then you can go back
to your seat.
I hadn't even got a piece of gum
in my mouth.
And the whole front row was full, and
there was people sitting at the altar.
That's how hungry people were for some kind
of personal contact.
Couldn't believe it.
The people that were up singing that first
Sunday sang the whole hymn through twice, all
the verses through twice.
We didn't know what to do.
And I was just praying with each person.
Because people can relate to what it means
to try harder, try harder.
Nothing's working.
You know, having burdens for people.
But this is what God and I have
worked out.
This is what God worked out and I
agreed to it when it comes to visitation.
And visitation for a pastor, here's Andrew, he's
a brand new pastor just as of June
of this year.
He's the pastor here at this church.
You know, some pastors, it's like they're carrying
a hockey bag full of gear around with
them when it comes to sermon preparation, another
hockey bag on visitation.
And I beat myself up too many years
trying harder and failing miserably.
And I'm glad that God has better choices.
I'm glad for that.
You can relate that to your life, I'm
sure, in ways that if you just give
God a chance to do that.
Well, the other day I got a call
from a guy in our church and we
were chatting and he said, what are you
up to?
And I said, well, I was up on
the roof putting new mortar on the chimney.
And that's what I'd been doing for about
an hour there, one of those last sunny
days before this cold weather socked us all
in.
And I'd been up on the roof cleaning
the chimney and I noticed that some of
the mortar between the bricks was cracking and
so I mixed up a little bit of
mortar, went up there with a trowel and
I think they called it repointing your chimney
maybe.
And as best I could, I spent an
hour and a half putting new mortar between
the bricks.
So anyway, the guy calls me and says,
I called you, you weren't home.
I said, I was up on the roof
and I'm doing this to the chimney and
this is what he said, was it leaking?
No, he said it was leaking, was it?
I said, no, it wasn't leaking at all.
And I realized I was a different guy
than the guy that stood a Canadian tire
that day.
Wrestling was spending 67 bucks.
This was just last week.
And I realized, Lord, I almost cried because
I thought, Lord, you're helping me.
You're helping me to make better choices.
And that's just a crazy illustration about a
chimney trying to, you know, look after it
before it breaks.
But spiritually, God is helping me that same
way to deal with things before they break.
God wants to help each one of us
to stop trying harder and start making better
choices.
I'm going to grab this guitar here and
sing a song.
And as I sing it, you might want
to close your eyes and just listen to
the words and let God speak to you
about this topic, would you?
In fact, let's stand as we consider this.
And I, if I be lifted up, he
said, will draw all men to me.
I raised my eyes to the skies and
said, his love lifted me.
Reach up for him.
You know, God's reaching down for you.
You can never seem to know.
Don't you think God knows just what you're
going through.
The miles of space, God's amazing grace can
span.
Reach up for him.
Reach up and touch God's hand.
The faintest flicker of faith, my friend, is
all God needs to see.
There's no need for words when your thoughts
are heard.
And his love lifted me.
Reach up for him.
You know, God's reaching down for you.
You can never seem to know.
Oh, don't you think God knows just what
you're going through.
The miles of space, God's amazing grace can
span.
Reach out for him.
Reach up and touch God's hand.
Lord, I pray that today, the rest of
this day, when I'm tempted to just try
harder on my own strength, that I would
just step back and say, let's approach this
a different way, Carl.
Let's make better choices with God's help.
Lord, I pray for that one today that
is used to trying harder and failing and
then feeling guilty over it.
And the whole cycle begins all over again.
I pray for those pastors that might be
listening to this or watching this today or
in the future.
If this could just give a pastor a
little bit of hope, a little bit of
some tools for his toolbox, then Lord, everything
we're doing is so worthwhile.
We know, Lord, that if we're not in
revival personally, it doesn't matter where we are,
we're not in revival.
But if we are in revival personally, if
you're personally reviving us, then wherever we are,
if we're in the deadest church or the
deadest job, we're in the middle of revival
because you're reviving us from inside.
So, Lord, may that be our case.
And it's in Christ's name we pray.
And everybody said amen and amen.
Please stop by and pick up some literature
I have out on the table that talks
a little bit about what I said here
today.
God bless you.