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I’m Not Writing a Blog Post This Week

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I love writing blog posts. I have been blogging for Sabbath School Net for just over ten years now, and I have had my personal blog for 14 years. I have been preaching ever since I was 15. A friend was surprised the other day, when I told her I love writing blog posts every bit as much, if not more than preaching. I love learning and sharing what I have learned. I love connecting with the world, while sitting on my comfy sofa in my pajamas with my laptop. That must be why I love blogging more than preaching. I can’t preach in my pajamas. I also love hearing from people all over the world as they comment on my posts, and share their thoughts and what they have learned, from their personal Bible study time. 

I love studying my Bible near the bay or gulf in the beautiful Tampa Bay area.

And personal Bible study time is where I am going with this. Oh no! I just started a sentence with a conjunction. A big no no. My college composition

professor would be turning over in his grave if he could see this. But guess what? I’m not writing a blog post this week, so I don’t have to worry about my grammar. Back to the personal Bible study time. As much as I love writing and preaching, sometimes I don’t have anything new or relevant to share. As sermon and blog deadlines approach I start feeling pressured. I start studying my Bible for new ideas and get frustrated if I can’t find anything. I start relating more with Martha than with Mary. You know the story, when Jesus visited Martha and Mary, and Mary was just visiting with Jesus while Martha was busy doing all the work. 

But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she approached Him and said, “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Therefore tell her to help me.” And Jesus answered and said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.” Luke 10:40-42 NKJV

Often when I am substitute teaching at school, I have to tell the kids to put away their distractions and get to work, but Martha was distracted by her work. Her work was the distraction. Martha was so busy preparing a meal she forgot Jesus was the main attraction and not the meal.

I love studying my Bible and preparing blog posts and sermons when the ideas and revelations just seem to flow. But I get frustrated when I feel pressured to come up with something new and can’t. That’s when I have to tell myself to stop trying to be like Martha and just be like Mary. I have to open my Bible and tell myself not to worry about preparing a spiritual meal for anyone. I don’t mean to be irreverent by saying this, but when I study God’s Word instead of it being about a sermon or blog post preparation, I just like to chill with God. I love and treasure the moments in His Word when He speaks to me as His own child and not just His spokesperson. I love it when He shows me something just between the two of us, that is not meant for the rest of the world to see or hear. I love reading my Bible without an agenda! No deadlines to meet, no thinking about how to fit this into a blog post or sermon. I remember those nights so long ago as a little child lying in bed at night, talking to Jesus like we were best friends having a slumber party. No sermons, no blog posts, just me and my best friend hanging out together because we loved each other. 

But this is really about you. What brought you here right now? Are you just chillaxing and studying right now, enjoying reading what others have to say? Then great! Are you preparing for Sabbath School class, maybe even preparing to teach, and everything is perfectly falling in place as you put your lesson together? Wonderful! However, if you are trying to put  your lesson together and nothing seems to be falling into place and here it is Friday already, don’t worry. Relax. Chill. Stop feeling like a Martha, thinking  you have to prepare all the time. God didn’t just create you to teach Sabbath School. He created you to be His child. He created you to be His best friend. Just borrow Michael Fracker’s lesson plan this week. It’s perfectly fine. Its not cheating. Pick up your Bible with no lesson plan, sermon preparation or agenda in mind, and just chill with your best Friend. Don’t let lesson plans and sermon preparations distract you from what your relationship with Jesus is really all about. After all, the Bible is not just a book to prepare you for eternity. The Bible takes us into God’s presence here and now. The Bible is not just a reference book to help you write sermons and prepare Sabbath School lesson plans. The Bible is God’s love story written to you. 

Like the title says, I am not writing a blog post this week. Jesus and I are having a slumber party again tonight. This is not a blog post. This is your invitation. You are invited. Let’s leave our preparation agendas behind and take our Bibles and just chill with Jesus tonight. It’s okay. You don’t have to be a Martha tonight. You can be a Mary, because there will be no pastors, Bible workers or Sabbath school teachers at the party. Only best friends of Jesus. 

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Comments

I’m Not Writing a Blog Post This Week — 13 Comments

  1. Excellent "blog" this week Mr. Earnhardt and a welcome reminder that the best part of the study is the real study that brings us closer to the object of the study.

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  5. As far as "Preaching," EGW very clearly counsels preachers to not preach every Sabbath and also counsels worshippers to not expect sermons every single Sabbath either. She very clearly indicates for Sabbath Worship Sevices to be mainly "Tetimonial Type Meetings," and even goes on to say that "If a discourse is even needed that it should be (short and full of the love and life of Jesus). Yet, in all my 50 plus years of my SDA Journey, Sabbath Sevices tend to always have a preacher Sermonizing about some SDA Church Doctrine of some kind.

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    • I find this same pattern also in my 55 plus years. When we all become brethren of strength, this pattern will change into some semblance of the outlined instruction of God. The present pattern has me in tears weekly. And I sigh in prayer during every sermon that God will come by and help us; we are so, so needy.

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  6. Thanks for reminding me that reading the Word of God is not just for the sake of meeting my Bible reading deadline but it's about chilling with Jesus, my best friend

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  7. So before we get to Noah, the word took us through the lineage of Adam. As dry as lineage history seems to be in the bible, I found-saw—perhaps like many of you this week— something magnanimous.

    In the 5th chapter, which the lesson doesn’t seem to give alot of press to, there are these words: Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image. This is just a repeat of the first verse in this passage: God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; male and female.

    Ten times this pattern is written in this passage for Seth, Enos, Cainan…etc.. In Adam’s record the words likeness and image are written, but following that record, the words likeness and image are not written though must be assumed by way of overall context.

    These ten times are special—they occur in the bible. And as we know no word in scripture is unimportant, but repeating it this many times must mean something to us because at the head of this record is mentioned something that is foundational to the theological line of Christianity—the image of God in/with man; Immanuel. In Christ this image of God is developed back into mankind’s lineage with perfection. This should mean much. Its record here demands individual study, or at the very least its connection to the life of Christ requires a prominent mention here! So let it be. So it is.

    A related question: Were Shem, Ham and Japheth Triplets; were they in Noah’s image? Were they identical triplets, thus completing this lengthy pattern of ‘…in his image.”

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    • Thanks, Samuel. I see it as significant that Adam was made in the image of God, but Adam's sons were made in Adam's image - meaning that each generation becomes farther and farther removed from the "image of God." That image is not natural to us but can only be restored in us through the Holy Spirit.

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  8. Don’t let lesson plans and sermon preparations distract you from what your relationship with Jesus is really all about. After all, the Bible is not just a book to prepare you for eternity. The Bible takes us into God’s presence here and now. The Bible is not just a reference book to help you write sermons and prepare Sabbath School lesson plans. The Bible is God’s love story written to you. –William Earnhardt.

    The relationship with Jesus is all about feeding the sheep and the lambs —this also includes feeding the 90 and 9 lambs that did not go astray. The identity factor of brotherly love encompasses the process of reading so that we may be workmen who encourage one another—and the more as we see the day approaching; we must show our elation (that lifting up the head…for our redemption draweth nigh.) Rightly so: ‘the bible is not just a reference book…’ but its functionality is not just to prepare us for eternity which, if exactly meant, is not a living person, but study of it should prepare us to be brethren, including being brethren to the angels. Our lives, our creation has always been about being chief expositors (from among created individuals) of the character of God to the rest of the heavenly family; let us study for that purpose, and let us so live the gems we find, ‘drawing life from’ every word that procedeth out of the mouth of God.

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  9. I find this same pattern also in my 55 plus years. When we all become brethren of strength, this pattern will change into some semblance of the outlined instruction of God. The present pattern has me in tears weekly. And I sigh in prayer during every sermon that God will come by and help us; we are so, so needy.

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    • Thank you for offering to us all your gracious encouragement. Like you, I am in tears nightly--and during each sermon--for the patterns we see today. Additionally, as a retired teacher, I am able to see the present conditional patterns which exist between our youth and the youth in the secular sphere. Because I still maintain fervent contact with my former public students as they graduate from University and go on into life, I can see the patterns and particularly notice one important similarity: the general youth patterns are always consequential to the patterns of the ones in charge (Parents, teachers, politicians, role models, etc) As you said, 'we are so, so needy' and this may be why the Elijah experience will come; it will surely solve this disconnect and return the communication between the minds of the fathers to the sons, etc...and beyond the normal son-father meaning of this verse, we can see deeper and understand that all the fathers in Christ who have ever written and taught us through the word are our fathers--we need to return to the faith of these fathers, for we are their 'sons'. To return to these spiritual fathers means returning by developing an intense love of the truth. The bible is that lovely and only Truth. (it is obviously a Person as well) Again, thank you for your gracious encouragement in your words.

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