Thankful for…Monday Morning

No, I’m not really thankful for Monday Morning. Well, maybe I am.

You see, Sundays are big days for me. As a pastor, much of my week is about being ready for Sunday. First of all, there’s the study and preparation to preach two services. Then there’s the fact that many times, I don’t know of a problem either in church organization or church family matters until Sunday. So, being ready for Sunday takes some effort.

Honestly, though I love it. But I am thankful for Monday mornings. Not because I sit here and gloat over how great a day it was yesterday. I think it was, most of the time. I preached what I thought I should preach, did my best to answer people forthrightly and honestly, and tried to adjust plans as appropriate. There’s no undoing any mistakes or errors I may have made. I can apologize for them and then try to do better.

I’m thankful for Monday mornings because I get to do it again. I head back to the Bible for coming messages. Back to the books for learning. Back to preparing for the week’s challenge. It’s a good thing. Because Monday Morning means the slate is mostly clean.

Plus I’m thankful for this, as I always ought to be: we had church yesterday. Anybody that wanted to come, could come. The police weren’t watching for us, the army didn’t stop us. There were no major restrictions on what I could say, what I could preach, or what we sang.

And that is something to be thankful for. For those of you who didn’t go to church, guess what? You can be thankful that nobody made you go. There’s places that you can’t do that. You don’t get to choose to not participate.

Now, I think you ought to go to church. For lots of reasons. But there’s no way that I will say anybody ought to make you.

And that’s a freedom we should be thankful for.