Tomorrow I will be having a couple of polyps removed from my vocal cords. I have been having more and more problems speaking since January 2005 when I had the flu. Hopefully and prayerfully this will solve the problem. It is somewhat embarrasing to be preaching and then to suddenly not be able to say anything. This happened to me on Easter Sunday this year with a full sanctuary. Many did come back Sunday night and I accused them of just coming to see if my voice would stop again. I have not preached very much since then. Of course it is not as bad as the man who wrote in his book that he had a problem when he first started preaching with fainting. He would be preaching and then just suddenly faint. It did result in larger crowds because everyone wanted to see if he was going to faint again. The problem eventually went away but it did make him draw closer to the Lord. My physical problems have drawn me closer to Him as well.

When the enemy comes, when the problems come, when things don't work out like we thought they would, when someone stabs us in the back, we need to focus not on our circumstances, situations, problems but upon the Lord. As the writer of Hebrews puts it in Hebrews 12:3, "Consider Him who endured such opposition from sinful man so that you do not grow weary and lose heart."