"I am a simple preacher"

I wrote that today while I was in a used bookshop looking for a good poetry book and that thought just descended on me.  It was like an epiphany almost, I am a simple preacher. Or perhaps it was more like, I'm simply a preacher. That's all, that's it. 

I'm not sure if it's a Randall thing or a guy thing or a human thing that sometimes drives me to be more than I am or to do more than I'm doing with my life. You know? I sometimes make myself crazy when I get to thinking that I need to be more or do more or get more accomplished with my life.

Then a  sign drops while I'm standing in a bookstore that declares that I am nothing but a simple preacher and quit trying to be more because it's not gonna work anyway.

I gotta say, it's humbling. But its not disheartening or overwhelming.

There is some level of peace and rest in that simple truth, that this is what it is I am and was always called to be. If I can have internal peace with it.

I think the epiphany about it is that my attitude has always been "I'm just doing this pastoring thing till something better comes along." I've used that language with people as a way of saying I'll do this until God, who led me into it, leads me out of it.

 But it's also maybe created in me a beneath the surface activity of looking for the other thing or the more thing that I could do, instead of or along with being a pastor. 

Always striving, always trying, always looking to spin who I am, to create more value or meaning. Then a sign comes to remind me that I am simply a preacher, that's enough.

That's enough indeed.
Now to learn to live into that, and to live well.