I had high hopes of making some progress on a few writing projects today. Not to be. From the moment I came into the office I was immersed in a complicated counseling situation in my congregation which consumed my whole morning with multiple phone calls, emails, texts, meetings, and writing up notes so that I can update my elders.

Usually, I try to keep my writing mornings free of distraction by turning off email, phone, etc. However, I knew I had to deal with this situation urgently and hoped I could make sufficient progress in a couple of hours so that I could get into study mode by mid-morning. By the time lunchtime came round and things had quietened down, I had little mental fuel left for any in-depth study – not helped by my usual post-debate insomnia last night.

Used my lunch break to fill out a mortgage application form and then met with two members in my congregation to plan an update and refresh of our congregational website which has been languishing for too long. Thankfully we now have a really gifted creative member who is taking it on and I look forward to seeing the fruit of her work.

At 2pm I attended practice preaching where one of our students preached a wonderful sermon on Ephesians 2:1-10. His points were:

I. What we were (vv. 1-3)

A. Dead in sin
B. Enslaved in sin
C. Condemned in sin

II. What God has done (vv. 4-6)

A. Through his mercy
B. Through his love
C. By his grace

III. What we are now to do (vv. 7-10)

A. To display the grace of God in humility
B. To be his workmanship created for good works

It was massively encouraging to see the student make such a huge improvement compared to the last time I heard him preach. Deeply satisfying to see someone humbly take on critique and work hard to improve.

I was so refreshed by that sermon that I summoned up the energy to do an hour of work on my dissertation about Matthew Henry. I started researching the chapter that will compare Henry with Richard Baxter.

After that I had another meeting related to the counseling problem before heading home and finalizing my blog posts for Friday.