Burning Hearts: Forewarning: Extremely volatile!

I preached my first sermon when I was about 7 years old. I was visiting my neighbor, Verna, who was too much too old for me (she was 9), but that didn’t stop us from being a make believe couple. She would make mud pies for me and while she “cooked,” I would preach to her. I made a big impression on her and her parents because they still remember it fifty years later. I should have written down my sermons.

As I grew older, I used to lie in bed at night and preach silently under the covers. I was a great evangelist. My pretend congregation always gave me great accolades. I should have written those sermons down, also. However, my career came to a screeching halt when I announced my call to preach at the tender age of twelve. I should have known that with such outstanding qualifications the pastor of the church was going to jump at the opportunity to have me fill the pulpit; that, and the fact that the pastor was my dad.

The big day came, or was it night, and I stood before the congregation full of vim and vigor. It was a long time ago, but I seem to remember thinking that the congregation under the covers was much more receptive than this staunch bunch of Baptists. Nevertheless, I am sure that I astounded my dad’s flock with my exegesis of the Scriptures, but it was simply too much for me. In my mind I had built my own expectations to such an impossible level that even Billy Graham would have found them difficult to meet. This young twelve year old didn’t have a chance. I am not sure what the text was. I am glad that I didn’t write it down.

So, I took a sabbatical. God had mercy on mankind, and I didn’t step into another pulpit for twenty years. There are those who are of the opinion that I returned too soon, but the die is cast. I am here to stay (it’s hard to get work nowadays).

I must have improved with time like a good wine. I even have a friend that remembers the very first sermon she heard me preach, and that was over 20 years ago. Many come to me who attended a service at my home church back in Georgia five years ago and tell me that they still remember the sermon I preached about my dad. These I do have written down. At least I have learned something over the years.

I now have the confidence to tell the joke about the preacher that preached his heart out at his church. As he was stepping off the platform, mentally patting himself on the back for such a great sermon, he was met at the bottom of the steps by one of the women in the church. She said, “Pastor, that has to be the worst sermon that I have ever heard in my life,” and walked away. One of the elders, standing close by, came over to comfort him. “Pastor,” he said, “don’t you pay any attention to what she said. She was just repeating what she heard everyone else saying.”

I have to tell you, I have had days like that. Even I couldn’t stand to hear myself any longer and fast forwarded through my notes to put an end to everyone’s misery. I can always tell when it’s been bad when my wife avoids me after the service and my daughter asks to spend the day with a friend.

Before we went to the mission field, I did a lot of itinerating. I did what many traveling speakers do. I preached the same five or six sermons over and over. One day I saw my daughter, who was about eight, drawing during my sermon and afterwards, chastised her and told her that it didn’t look very good when the preacher’s own daughter didn’t listen. The next time I preached she paid rapt attention during the sermon. It appeared that she hung on every word I said. After the service, she wanted to pay me a compliment by telling me that what I preached was the most prophetic sermon she had ever heard. However, her vocabulary was still growing in those days and instead she proclaimed, “Dad that was the most pathetic sermon I have ever heard.” Out of the mouth of babes!

To bring this pathetic story to a close and try to salvage what I can from it, let me get to the point. Today, I was reading the story of the two men on the road to Emmaus the day that Christ resurrected. In case you don’t remember, they were approached by Jesus and together they continued their journey. However, Jesus had hidden his identity from them for a time during which he revealed the Christ to them throughout the Scriptures. Later, after their eyes were opened to whom he really was, they exclaimed, “Did not our hearts burn within us as he spoke with us and explained the Scriptures to us?”

This has become my heart’s cry. I have no desire for fame or fortune, I only desire that God will speak through me and that people’s hearts will burn within them. Whether I am good or bad, pathetic or prophetic, I must preach. It is my calling. It is my destiny. As the prophet Jeremiah said, “if I say, ‘I will not remember Him or speak anymore in His name,’ then in my heart it becomes like a burning fire shut up in my bones.”

Burn fire, burn!

© Copyright 2005 by Paul Whitley. All rights reserved.