Slithering down the wall

Did Samson reach a stage where his body just wouldn't do what he wanted? Did he reach a stage where the aches, the pains, the amount of damage to muscles that weren't used to, er, muscling just got to be too much? Well, sort of.

You remember ol' Samson, right? Big guy. Lumbering guy. Guy who could kill a 1,000 with the jawbone of an ass. When I was young, that sentence alone could make me go into giggles. But I digress.

Here in the real world, I have found the wall. I found it when I hit it. Limping along at a mile a minute (or a box a minute or a next new thing to plug in, pull out or life), I found the wall. Walls are us, I'm afraid.

Sometime last night after a fabulous day of working on a sermon for Sunday, getting a call of encouragement from a dear friend in the ministry, meeting a gazillion folks I couldn't name again with a gun put to my head, turning in my second religion column for the Eunice News, meeting with a reporter for a story in Sunday's newspaper about me, working with my new staff (did I write that correctly? I have a staff?) on Sunday worship, viewing a VBS that featured 118 kids bouncing off the wall (my wall as it were), and then watching a youth group from Shreveport playing and singing some of my contemporary Christian praise songs, well, I just flopped.

I slept late, past 8 a.m. I'm still groggy. I still hurt. I still wonder where all those boxes that we've put outside are going to go. I still wonder where all the boxes that are still inside the house are going to go. And I don't want to lift anything. Again. Ever.

But there's work to be done. There's no question about that. No. The question is whether I can do it or not. Today we must get in the car and find, literally find, the other two churches in this three-point charge. It wouldn't hurt simply to get out and about since I know one road right now. One road into Eunice. One road out. I understand in my gut there will be more than that. I just haven't had time nor energy to find them.

Samson's ego and pride were the death of him, eventually, as you might recall. Samson was beaten, blinded, humiliated. The ol' Philistines had done a number on him. But in the end (literally), God provided him with enough strength to pull the curtains down on those villains.

I'm beaten, but not blinded. I'm humbled but not humiliated. I'm stretched, but not overcome. God provide me with enough strength to do my thing come Sunday.

If the first Sunday in a new place forms a lasting impression, I'm terrified my impression to the congregations will be forever one of a man who certainly knows his physical limitations.

As my wife said moments ago, "I've hit the wall, and now I'm slithering down."