Sermonizing??

Today I preached my first sermon...a very new and different experience for me. In my past job I often had to do presentations and spoke on several other occasions, but this was just different. This whole deal of the Holy Spirit speaking through you changes everything. I really sensed that the Holy Spirit showed up a few weeks ago one late night when this message really hit me...living in response to grace. It was like the flood gates opened and the whole sermon just poured out of me. But after that I began to refine it, analyze it, organize it, and basically beat it to death. But this whole time I just did not feel the same burn in my heart as I did that first night when it all just overflowed into messy notes onto my notebook paper. As I went over my outline and spoke the message out in my mind the last few days, I just did not have that same original passion...almost like I was missing something. Was what I was missing the Holy Spirit?? Early this morning as I was going over everything one last time I just realized that I had done all I could do...it was time to just leave the rest as open space for God to do the final work...and he did.

It's so hard to judge how one's own sermon goes. I'm actually trying not to think about it at all...but I'm tempted to replay it in my mind and analyze every word I can remember but I feel like I just need to leave it alone. I was overwhelmed as I was speaking and even choked up a few times. I definately felt more enabled to articulate clearly and precisely things that I could not get down as I prepared. I think that what I was feeling was the Holy Spirit guiding my words. This is all new to me. It's almost like my little son Benjamin learning to walk for the first time...he's akwardly stumbling around not knowing how or what exactly he's doing.