working through and waking up

Yesterday was a full day. I preached for the first time at Christ Community, here in West Hartford. Then I taught a class on Spiritual Gifts - the first part of a four part serries with the teens, adults, and older elementary kids. After church the teenage girls came over for lunch, which we normally do on the fourth Sunday. Everything came off really well and I am thankful for all of you out there who were praying for me this weekend.
Going into the sermon I wasn't that nervous, which was strange. As I preached I felt like I wasn't connecting and was concerned about going over my time limit. I got a little mixed up in my head at a point or two and felt somehwhat dissapointed coming out of the pulpit. But despite my kinda negative feelings or critique of it, God used the sermon in people's lives. People were very encouraging and I was thankful that God worked through me even though I had trouble connecting to it. It was an interesting experience and I am still thinking through it. If you are interested in listening to my sermon, click on this link and you'll arrive at the church website. It is at the top of the list.
The spiritual gifts class, also went well - except for some technological difficulties. My computer generally works well, except for when I'm trying to use it at some sort of public event. Despite my power point presentation freaking out for most of the class, it went really well. It was fun to have this wide range of ages there and to see people interacting and talking about how God has gifted them for his service.
The other thing on my mind happened as I was lying in bed this morning, slowly waking up. I was thinking how easy it is to try to earn God's favor. Regardless of how often I remind myself and others that God loves his people because of Christ, and not because of what we do - it is so easy to live otherwise. I want to know the freedom of simply being cherished because of what Christ has done.