One of my sons has a shirt that says this single line, “Don’t believe me just watch.” I assume the shirt was trying cash in on the popularity of a song called “Uptown Funk.” If you have not heard the song, that’s okay, it is not a very good song. The song was created by Mark Ronson featuring Bruno Mars and is more of dance tune than powerful ballad. But there is that one line, “Don’t believe me just watch.”

I have thought that I Christians should all be given a shirt with this one line on it. “Don’t believe me, just watch.” You don’t believe in Jesus? You don’t believe he can give you peace? You don’t believe he answers prayers? You don’t believe he helps you handle life’s toughest questions. You don’t believe me? Well, just sit back and watch.

Watch me live out my faith. Watch my life being lived differently than non-believers. Watch me have love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness and self-control. Watch the difference Jesus has made in my life.

You don’t believe me about Jesus, well just watch and learn.

Sometimes I like to pull back the curtain on my life and job and let people know a little bit more about me. Recently I was thinking about how there are some Sunday’s I find it hard to preach. Please let me explain:

1. When I am not prepared enough – Some weeks are just busy. There are Church functions, holidays, special events and numerous other things that allow me less time to prepare. As a result on Sunday I know that I could have done more.

2. When I am tired – Believe it or not, preachers get tired. It might have been a long week or just a short Saturday night. Some weeks are just full of activity and I get little sleep. Then on weekends I usually try to get to bed by 9:00 pm on Saturday, but unfortunately there are a lot of events that do not honor my bed time. This leaves me out and busy sometimes until midnight. After a short night the brain doesn’t function as well on Sunday.

3. When it has been an emotional time – I have really noticed this lately with my son’s graduation and my parents in the hospital. It is hard to preach with a heavy heart. This is when I can really tell the emotional energy is not there.

4. When attendance is down – attendance is a weird thing for public speakers. If I expect 15 people to show up and 20 people are there then I am energized. When I expect 25 people there and only 20 show up then I struggle. It is not so much a numbers thing as it is a psychological thing.

5. When there are distractions – No one likes to talk about this because it will hurt someone’s feelings. But the truth remains the same, distractions are difficult to speak through. The phone going off, the baby crying, the people getting up and down, the guy snoring and a hundred other things can happen each week. When they do occur it is easy for me to lose my place and feel frustrated because the big point I was trying to make just got lost.

With all that said, I have written before about how God manages to take the times I found it hard to preach and still uses them. I am thankful that God does not just work when I feel good about my sermon. Usually He does his best work when I feel like things did not go that well.