Need vs. Want

I should be working...I'm in my office where the afternoon is unusually quiet; that means I'm working, right? Never mind that I'm reading blogs and checking personal email and texting my hubby. I will leave soon to pick up Baby Girl from daycare; she's 17 months old now. I think I need a different nickname, but I digress.

Knowing tomorrow will be a busy day of appointments, I want to get a sermon written for this weekend--maybe it's even a need. But it's not happening. I'm managing to stay on top of other work things and maybe even enjoying some of them. But not preaching. It seems to be such a struggle lately. And yet, I look longingly at a potential D.Min program at my alma mater. But I've become a horrible preacher. My habits are atrocious; I am very disappointed in myself. I would be embarrassed to tell my preaching professor, a person who I admire so much, a person who has also so often been my pastor.

I can't decide if my bad preaching is a symptom or the problem. I am so very done here in this place. I need something that will be rejuvenating and life-giving. I'm hopeful about a continuing ed. event this summer, but details are still very fuzzy and senior pastor is already having a fit about how he'll fit taking youth on a mission trip and get his vacation in this summer, especially if I'll be gone any of it. (Never mind that I agreed to go to the week of confirmation camp and also am entitled to vacation time. Heaven forbid that we get a supply pastor even though it's in the budget.)

I want to be a better preacher--I need to. Yes, God can work through all sorts of garbage, but I've got to get out of the way. Right now, I feel squarely in the way. I find all sorts of things to do to avoid sermon writing because I feel like such a failure.

At text study this week, I said that I wasn't sure where I'm going exactly (I have a designated theme because of a program we are doing). I said, "I think I just need to start writing and see what happens." I just haven't been able to bring myself to start. Sometimes I need to sit with paper and pencil. Perhaps late tonight after evening meeting. Who needs sleep, right?