After the busiest autumn in memory — with outside speaking in Virginia, Alabama, Oklahoma, Mississippi, and Louisiana, alongside my regular work here at the associational office — I finished up Tuesday night with a ministers and wives Christmas banquet in the western section of our state. Suddenly the calendar is clear for the rest of December and throughout most of January. It’s a strange feeling, after praying so diligently about each one of those preaching assignments for months and then to have them abruptly go away.

Recently, I felt the Lord impressing upon me that just because the event was over (and that I had traveled to that city, arrived at the church, gotten up, delivered the message, and left town without betraying the Lord, embarrassing my hosts or humiliating myself!), that was no reason to quit praying for those who had heard the sermons. Ever since I’ve continued praying for the friends who attended the two day associational meeting in Newport News in October, the directors of missions in Alabama, the pastors and others in Alabama who made up that convention audience in November, the church members in several states where I brought Sunday messages, and the pastors and associational leaders in Oklahoma.

Praying what? Not knowing what else to pray for, I simply ask the Lord to bless the continuing effect of the messages He gave me in the hearts and minds of those who heard. Beyond that, I just leave it with the Lord. (What I most certainly do not ask is that He will let anything about me personally linger in their hearts; it’s about Him, not me.)

The biggest difference in my preaching at special events now and say, twenty-five years ago, is prayer. From the moment the invitation arrives, I add it to my daily prayer routine and intercede for those who will be present and seek God’s will for what to preach. Invariably now, when I rise to preach, I am as sure as I can be that I know what He wants me to say. And that, I confess to you, is a far cry from where I used to be.

In earlier years, I sweated these things. Of course, receiving the invitation to speak in someone’s church or at a denominational event was always a delight. I felt honored to be invited, and still do. But before long, I started sweating and fearing. What would I preach? What was the situation with those folks? Should I use something I’ve preached before? How could I know? How could I be sure? Should I seek more input from the host? A thousand such questions and worries rose up.

Eventually then, when I stood to preach — I remember the flood of emotions washing over me as I walked toward the pulpit — I did the best I could and everything seemed to go over all right. But there was something always lacking.

I know now what it was.

I needed the certainty that comes from knowing this is the message the Lord God of the Universe has chosen to speak through me to these people on this occasion.

For a pastor, there is nothing finer.

And it’s all the result of prayer.

Oh, I’m sure I prayed back then. The difference I think — and the Father is the only One who can sort these things out and who knows for certain — is that my prayers in former times seem to have been just “worrying God.” I was bugging Him about the sermon and the event and the hearers. Nagging, pestering, hounding, doubting, fearing — everything but believing and asking in faith.

The prayer of faith is unlike any other kind of prayer. In this, we ask for God’s will and wait for it. We claim His will and purpose and keep reminding ourselves to settle for nothing less. And because we begin praying days, weeks, or even months in advance of the event, there’s no panic.

In praying for the Father’s will, we calm our hearts and settle our nerves. His timing is always right; we wait for Him. In the meantime, we begin cleaning off a space for what the Lord will be doing. Clearing off new ground, we would have called it on the farm. Getting ready for whatever structure the Lord wishes to erect on this site.

Non-preachers will quickly identify with this situation. After all, it’s not only about getting ready to preach a sermon that looms out there before us and drives us to our knees in prayer. It’s everything — an appointment with the doctor, an examination in school, a presentation before the board of directors, any kind of crisis that feels beyond you and brings you to the Father for His will.

“I delight to do thy will, O Lord.” That line from Psalm 40:8 is repeated in Hebrews 10:7 where it is applied to the Lord Jesus. I have to confess frequently to the Father that I’m not always able to say that, but I add, “I want to be able to.”

I want to want His will. When everything is over, the times we have done His will are occasions of the greatest impact and the moments we’ll be proudest of.

And now the fun part comes. With the restful days of the Christmas season upon us and a new year around the corner, what invitations will be arriving for 2009? What messages will the Lord be ordering (and sending!) and how will I be growing? What new friends will I be meeting and which old ones will we be reconnecting with?

At a break in a conference on planning, a man called to a friend, “Ken, where will you be five years from now and what will you be doing?”

Ken said, “I don’t have the foggiest idea.”

The fellow said, “I thought you believed in long range planning.”

Ken said, “I do. But the God I serve is notoriously unpredictable.”

Exciting, isn’t it.