The week before I gave my sermon I settled on Psalm 25 and I decided to really sit with the text and meditate on it. I allowed myself the opportunity to really get to know the text. I focused on what Lammers- Gross called a personal conversation between the preacher and the text. What I found is that for the text I had bitten off more than I can chew. It was really three different segments. The first segment was about honor/shame, the second segment was about knowledge, and the third segment was about mercy. If I tried to preach the entire text I could skim the surface of all three of those important God-given subjects, but I would not be able to have a deeper conversation about any of them. I would be doing both the congregation and myself a disservice. I decided the waiting aspect of verse 3 would be my focus, because it is such an important part of the advent season. Psalm 25:3 said, “Do not let those who wait for you be put to shame; let them be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous.”
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First, I started by exploring personal examples in my own life. It could be waiting for college, waiting for love, or even waiting for a calling. Then, I thought about the unique experience of waiting to hear again. When I was 14 I started to lose my hearing, by 19 I was wearing hearing aids, and by 21 I was legally deaf. My mother was a cochlear implant recipient, so despite being disappointed with my medical affliction I knew the possibility of a vast improvement in my life was right on the horizon. However, I was shocked to find out insurance was unwilling to pay for the surgery, because my lip reading scores were too high. My audiologist informed me that basically I was going to have to patiently wait to be deaf enough so insurance would approve the surgery. I had to wait two years before I could receive my God-given
First, I started by exploring personal examples in my own life. It could be waiting for college, waiting for love, or even waiting for a calling. Then, I thought about the unique experience of waiting to hear again. When I was 14 I started to lose my hearing, by 19 I was wearing hearing aids, and by 21 I was legally deaf. My mother was a cochlear implant recipient, so despite being disappointed with my medical affliction I knew the possibility of a vast improvement in my life was right on the horizon. However, I was shocked to find out insurance was unwilling to pay for the surgery, because my lip reading scores were too high. My audiologist informed me that basically I was going to have to patiently wait to be deaf enough so insurance would approve the surgery. I had to wait two years before I could receive my God-given