Yesterday in church my pastor was talking about embryology. Yes, that’s right, the science and miracle of how life begins in the womb. This particular pastor was actually pre-med in college before the Lord called him into ministry. Little wonder he was excited about the topic and eager to share just what an amazing creation the human body is, from the moment of conception.
As he led us through a couple of verses from Psalm 139 that talk about how we’re “fearfully made,” something happened to me. Oh, it’s not a new experience; it’s happened before. I’ve talked to plenty of colleagues who’ve had this same experience. If you like to write, it’s probably happened to you, too. We’re sitting in church, taking everything in as it applies to our own faith and daily living, and suddenly an aspect of the sermon is exactly what a character in our current project needs to hear. It’s as if God timed the point of our novel and the topic of the sermon to intersect.
In my current project, still mainly referred to as simply Book Two or the tentative title “Will-O’-The-Wisp,” my hero struggles with his faith. He perceives God to have let him down so many times He can no longer be trusted.
Today, when my pastor talked about the reasons this Psalm of David uses the term that we’re “fearfully made,” he said it’s because such a miracle of life inspires awe. Awe because of how brilliant our Creator God really is.
He went on to explain a couple of practical benefits that accompany an awareness of God’s brilliance.
The two benefits mentioned today were:
Relinquish — By recognizing God’s superior understanding of life, it’s easy to hand over control and let Him be the Lord of our life.
And:
Relax — We can relax knowing God is in control because of His absolute genius.
When the pastor reminded us that God is worthy of having us relax in His care, that we can trust Him because there’s no problem He hasn’t seen or can’t handle, my character’s dilemma came back to me. He thinks he’d better take control of things because, clearly, God can’t do the job. But being reminded that God is so much more brilliant than my character can imagine is exactly what he needs to hear.
So while I’d begun making notes about how the sermon applied to me and real life, I ended up making notes about how I would incorporate everything I was learning into my work-in-progress—and pass on the wisdom to readers through my characters. Not that I wasn’t still listening to the sermon, of course. 😉
Interesting how God works, isn’t it?
Maureen,
That is so true. Much, much of my inspiration for books, articles, projects comes when listening to a sermon.
Now I’m the one preaching, but I fill that void by podcasting and listening to a lot of sermons in the car. It still works. I often get incredibly inspired during a message. And often its a message unrelated to my topic–but the Spirit moves in me.
I tend to think of sermons as being part of “God’s Network” and am often impressed by how He coordinates all of it!
Thanks for commenting, Dan, and I’m so grateful you’re part of God’s Network. 🙂