Freak the Freak Out

Do you ever start doing some thing and not too long after you start you begin to wonder what the hell you're doing? Yeah, welcome to my life this past week. Let me start by saying a couple weeks ago, in fact the day I decided to go for the ministry, I was asked by a member of my congregation to preach with her on the 14th. I said yes, a little caught up in the first steps of my new life. Then reality started to set in, but I wasn't thinking too much about it because I had some time and I was pretty focused on my campus visit to Colgate. Then I sat in the Intro to Preaching class and as I listened to the students give their five minute sermons I started to mentally panic. They were all so good! So profound and deep and spirit-filled. How the heck could I write a sermon? Many of them had been preaching for a while, and even the ones that hadn't been had been sitting in that class for a couple months. Intimidated doesn't even begin to describe how I was feeling. Then I met with my fellow church goer later that same day to talk a little about the sermon and to look over the lectionary readings for that week in the church year. Couldn't I have gotten a nice easy reading (if there is such a thing)? So I kept reading over and over the scriptures and found myself being drawn to Mark 10:17-31. I'm now freaking out. I feel like I have no clue what I am doing. I have all these ideas and much like with the essays I would attempt to write in high school, I can't seem to boil them down. I finally came up with a title "God Makes the Impossible Possible" and the research began. I was/am still freaking out. I feel so unqualified. Who am I to stand in front of my congregation and start preaching to them? What do I know? Why should they listen to me? What if I'm boring? What if I talk to fast? What if I don't "prove" my points (another common note I got from those high school teachers grading my essays). And how am I going to make my thoughts last in a 15-18 minute sermon? Even in Intro to Preaching they only had to do a five minute sermon!!! I've been trying to take deep breaths and lift it up to God. After all, He's the one who kept pushing me to Mark and he's the one who helped me figure out what I wanted to preach on. But then I start wondering if that's even a good topic. Most of what I could find dealt with the idea that this passage is mostly about sacrifice and giving up your wealth to follow Jesus. And this is true, but I kept being drawn to the phrase: "For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible." But now this idea of writing a sermon is my impossible. My camel through the eye of the needle. Does everyone feel like this before their first sermon? Before every sermon? I'm the type of person who only likes to do something if I can do it right. And well. This is one reason why I'm always scared to try new things. I don't like situations I'm not comfortable in. And I am really not comfortable right now. I know I'm probably putting too much pressure on myself but I can't help it. The predominant thought for me is "What if I suck?" By the way, if you're curious, the Bible passage I'm writing on is known as the parable of the rich man. In case you were wondering.