When it comes to weekly newsletters and teachings, I have a confession. When I sit down to write, I'm not writing from some elevated place where I've already figured things out. That's not how it works, at least not for me. More often, I'm writing from somewhere in the middle of the thing. Still inside it. The encouragement I'm offering is usually the encouragement I most need to hear myself.
There's often an assumption that pastors are further along. That the person on the stage has wrestled the hard things to the ground and come out clean on the other side. I understand why that assumption exists. But if I'm being honest, and I'm trying to be, that's rarely where I'm standing when the words come. The newsletters, the sermons, the reflections I share week after week, they're not dispatches from solid ground. They're more like notes I'm writing to myself, and then handing to you, hoping they land somewhere useful for both of us.
Paul writes in Philippians 3:12, "Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on." That's Paul. The guy who wrote half the New Testament. Still pressing. Still in process. That verse has always been a strange comfort to me, because if Paul gets to say that, maybe I do too.
The call to patience I write about? I need patience. The reflection on trusting God in hard seasons? I'm in a hard season. The reminder to slow down and really listen? That one was written at my desk on a day I was moving too fast and not listening to much of anything.
And if I'm being really honest, some of this isn't even fresh struggle. Some of what I write about and teach on are things I've been trying to learn for years. Not things I recently wrestled with and came through, but things I'm still in the middle of, still circling back to, still not sure I've made much progress on. I'm not always a few steps ahead of you. Sometimes I'm not ahead at all. I'm just the one with the microphone, which is its own strange thing to sit with.
The Lord seems to do most of His work on me through the very things I eventually ask you to consider. He puts it on my heart before He puts it in my words, and sometimes only barely before. I'm not sure that's a problem. It might just be how He works.
So when something resonates here, just know it's probably still resonating with me too. We're not so different in that way. We're on this road together, and I’m grateful to be in it with you all.
peace,
Nick
There's often an assumption that pastors are further along. That the person on the stage has wrestled the hard things to the ground and come out clean on the other side. I understand why that assumption exists. But if I'm being honest, and I'm trying to be, that's rarely where I'm standing when the words come. The newsletters, the sermons, the reflections I share week after week, they're not dispatches from solid ground. They're more like notes I'm writing to myself, and then handing to you, hoping they land somewhere useful for both of us.
Paul writes in Philippians 3:12, "Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on." That's Paul. The guy who wrote half the New Testament. Still pressing. Still in process. That verse has always been a strange comfort to me, because if Paul gets to say that, maybe I do too.
The call to patience I write about? I need patience. The reflection on trusting God in hard seasons? I'm in a hard season. The reminder to slow down and really listen? That one was written at my desk on a day I was moving too fast and not listening to much of anything.
And if I'm being really honest, some of this isn't even fresh struggle. Some of what I write about and teach on are things I've been trying to learn for years. Not things I recently wrestled with and came through, but things I'm still in the middle of, still circling back to, still not sure I've made much progress on. I'm not always a few steps ahead of you. Sometimes I'm not ahead at all. I'm just the one with the microphone, which is its own strange thing to sit with.
The Lord seems to do most of His work on me through the very things I eventually ask you to consider. He puts it on my heart before He puts it in my words, and sometimes only barely before. I'm not sure that's a problem. It might just be how He works.
So when something resonates here, just know it's probably still resonating with me too. We're not so different in that way. We're on this road together, and I’m grateful to be in it with you all.
peace,
Nick
Posted in Pastor\\\'s note