Published: May 22, 2025 at 08:30 PM

Tags: gospel, bible study, books, personal

Lately I’ve been working on my Gospel message for the upcoming Zoom meeting with the Philippines, scheduled for May 31st. It’s been on my mind more than usual. I tend to second-guess my messages, not because I don’t believe them, but because I often lack a bit of confidence in my delivery.

My friend Timmy, who passed away earlier this year, used to review all of my messages before I shared them. He was a trusted sounding board, and I leaned on his input more than I realized. Knowing someone else had read through what I had prepared always gave me some peace of mind, that I was on the right track. I miss that encouragement.

I’m also not the most comfortable speaker. Unlike many who go up with a few bullet points or rely on a flow of spontaneous thought, I write everything out, word for word. That’s how I make sense of the message. The clarity doesn’t usually come when I stand up to speak; it comes when pen hits paper (or more often, fingers hit the keyboard). I do sometimes veer from the script in the moment, but having every word written means that when my mind blanks, I’m not stuck.

Outside of message prep, I’ve been slowly cataloging my personal book collection, starting with the PEI books. It’s a larger task than I expected. Only about half of them scanned properly, and of those, I’ve had to manually add cover images for nearly half again. And of course, the other half didn’t scan at all. So now I’m plugging them in manually one by one. It’s slow work, but it’s necessary. I’ve already bought duplicates more than once simply because I forgot what I had.

Tonight is prayer and Bible study at the O’Leary Gospel Hall. We’re starting at 1 Peter 1:18, likely wrapping up the rest of the chapter. I’d like to say I’m ready, but more often than not, I feel like I’m more prepared than I actually am. Still, being among the believers, digging into the Word, it always turns out to be worthwhile, whether I speak up or not.

We press on.