Yep... I actually did it. After blogging last week about my lack of cool I took any shred I potentially had and crushed it at yesterday's Revelation Church gathering. All in the name of making something memorable :)
For the last four weeks our church community has been looking at the Old Testament book of Esther and I have to say it's been an excellent series. Each week Ellie, Ben and Dan have delivered something that has stayed with me. Be it a question like, 'what am I being prepared for? Or a statement like, 'God is not the architect of our suffering but the redeemer of it.' Through to the challenge of, 'practicing the art of patience'. I had the pleasure of finishing off our journey through the book yesterday, covering the last five chapters in 20 minutes (Eeek!). It was a challenge but I thoroughly enjoyed studying for this one and have rarely felt like I had such a clear idea of what I wanted to say... well by Saturday I did anyway...
As I sat with all my study notes before me on Friday night I felt a little overwhelmed. Five chapters! There was so much! What one thing could I possibly base my talk around? So I asked God what he thought and the memory that immediately popped into my head made me laugh out loud. My parents became Christians when I was 7ish so I was around church young enough to have grown up with many of the classic scripture songs. From a young age I took up the recorder (descant, treble and tennor - I was keen - story of my life) and the moment that was crystal clear in my mind Friday night was myself, clumsily working out how to play 'Seek Ye First' on my treble. I jumped up to grab my treble - yes I still own it though I rarely play it now - and with fumbling fingers realised I still remembered it. As I stuttered through the notes the lyrics (lifted from Matthew 6:33) were following along in my mind...
"Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and his righteousness.
And all these things will be added onto you aa-alelu-alelu-jah."
After my laughter subsided I pretty much wrote my talk in one draft. What can we take from the examples of Mordecai, Esther, Xerxes and Haman? Seek to build your own Kingdom and one day it will crumble. Seek to build God's and God will take care of the rest. After a few re-drafts to tighten it up (I am a serial talk editor - can't stop, even as I'm waiting to go on) I gave my talk resplendent with musical accompaniment yesterday morning; yes I looked stupid, but everyone's gonna remember which verse I was talking about. The recording went up on the Revs site this morning. You can download it here.