Sermon Illustrations: Inspiration

Bill Hybels told this story: He was pitching for his baseball team. His coach emphasised how they were depending on him, and Bill was all pepped up. He got the ball, gave it his best pitch, and just as it left his hand, he realised that his catcher was talking to the umpire. The ball hit the catcher in the chest so hard that he collapsed. They laid him in the dugout. Bill ran over, and the catcher looked at him as if to say, "What were you thinking?" Hybels said, "I was inspired!"

The great composer does not set to work because he is inspired, but becomes inspired because he is working. Bach, Beethoven, Wagner and Mozart settled down day after day to the job with as much regularity as an accountant settles down each day in his figures. They didn't waste time waiting for inspiration. Ernest Newman

Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working. Pablo Picasso