After taking my normal mid-week break yesterday to share a “Preaching Tip” with pastors, I want to continue today to explore a very critical spiritual disciple that we call Going on a God Hunt. What we’re doing is learning how to begin to look for evidences of God making His presence known in our everyday worlds. Specifically, we’re exploring evidence of God at work in our lives through unusual linkage or timing.
As we continue our discussion please allow me to share with you an illustration from Karen Mains’ book The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found:
My son Joel remembers this amazing story from his days as a film student at Columbia Performing Arts School in Chicago. “I had given my final film project to a student friend to hand in to my professor so I was shocked when I received a B grade and was told that my last project hadn’t been completed. Checking this out, I discovered that in my haste, I had torn off the unused film, then mistakenly given my edited film project to another student who was finishing his senior project, thinking it was the extra unused film.”
“When I explained this to my professor, he gave me back the processed, but blank film and said I could try to complete my project and raise my final grade. He allowed me only one session in the editing suite at an odd hour to rework my project. Now this was a commuter campus, and the students who were supposed to give me a ride into the city so that I could redo my project were two hours late in picking me up. All I could do was pray and say, ‘Lord, you are going to have to help me do eight hours of work in six.’”
“However, because I was late, I ran into the film major to whom I had given what I thought was the canister of unused film. I could not have run into him earlier—‘amazingly’ his class was taking a short, three-minute break, and he was standing in the halls. I told him my sad tale, and we ran over to his apartment in the city. Lo and behold, he had not filmed over my project. There in his packed refrigerator freezer was my edited work—complete, unspoiled, with the torn end perfectly matching the torn end of the empty film that had been turned in to the professor.
“Not only did I avoid spending six hours in the editing suite, but I had the proof in the matching torn ends that the story I had told the professor was true.”
So, when going on a God Hunt, don’t forget to take note of unusual linkage or timing. That pretty well sums up what I’m saying to you this particular blog post on this topic. When going on a God Hunt, don’t forget to take note of unusual linkage or timing.
It’s sad when Christians lose the special sense of God’s presence in their lives, but it happens all the time. What I’ve tried to do during this series of blog posts is simply help you reconnect with the Lord. My blog posts haven’t come anywhere near resolving all the problems that could impact on your feeling cut off from heaven. But they’re a start. And sometimes that’s all a person needs.
——————————————–
Sunday’s coming. Do you have your sermon ready? Is it relevant? Will it effectively motivate your congregation to walk more in step with the Master? What about that Sermon Series you’ve been thinking about?
Or, if you’re someone who plans well ahead, have you asked yourself what you will preach for your Easter Sermon, your Advent Sermon, your Christmas Sermon?
David Mains and Mainstay Ministries can help. We offer a wide variety of Sermon Starters and Full Sermons that will give you Sermon Ideas to help you prepare for regular Saturday or Sunday sermons, Mid-week Bible Sermons, and Sermons for special occasions.
We also offer assistance as you create Topical Sermons, Sermons Series, and sermons for special times of the year. We have resources available to help you with Advent Celebrations, Advent Sermons, Christmas Sermons, Easter Sunday Sermons, Patriotic Sermons, and more.
For more information on how to create better Bible Sermons and how to turn Sermon Ideas into Sermon Outlines, and then into effective, meaningful Sunday Sermons, please click here to visit David Mains’ website.
You will also find a variety of resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries website. Just click here.
