{"id":3474,"date":"2023-07-22T03:47:00","date_gmt":"2023-07-22T03:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=3474"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:33:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:33:09","slug":"ahead-of-the-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=3474","title":{"rendered":"AHEAD OF THE GAME"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I just finished writing a 16 page exegesis paper, so I am done writing for the day.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On the bright side, this means my preaching is just about entirely in manuscript form already &#8211; which is one of the requirements for this Sunday&#8217;s sermon &#8211; the one based on this exegesis and needing to be submitted on video for a grade.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It is good to be this far along on the sermon because tomorrow (Saturday) evening is our VBS program. There will be no time for last minute sermon writing tomorrow evening!\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I do still need to put together a PowerPoint presentation with it. I did the PowerPoint last week and it proved to be useful for keeping me on track and the congregation engaged, so I plan to make it a regular habit.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I prayed the Lord&#8217;s prayer this morning &#8211; a new habit I am cultivating. Whenever I get to &#8220;give us this day our daily bread&#8221;, I always take that to mean, &#8220;Lord, give me whatever it is that I need today to make this day successful&#8221;. So this morning I asked for the grace and the strength and the mental sharpness to finish this paper.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And now it is finished. With an hour and 25 minutes to spare!\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Thank you, Lord, and goodnight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I just finished writing a 16 page exegesis paper, so I am done writing for the day. On the bright side, this means my preaching is just about entirely in manuscript form already &#8211; which is one of the requirements for this Sunday&#8217;s sermon &#8211; the one based on this exegesis and needing to be [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3474"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3475,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3474\/revisions\/3475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}