God actually does help when I ask for it

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 5:6-7

Been a pretty anxious last couple of weeks. I had some absolutely huge presentations to give.

The first was a chance to bring some organizations at work together to achieve something they couldn't have gotten to work without working together. Someone a few layers above should have had this meeting, but he didn't. Myself and another guy at the office knew they were headed for certain defeat so we put together a brief to convince them all to work together. I was quite nervous b/c I wasn't quite sure that the high level guy really hadn't coordinated the different efforts, and I could be stepping out on a limb. I prayed like crazy and God answered my prayers. The presentation went great and the offices agreed to work together.

The second was a brief to the president of my company. I've been working on a research project with 16 other people at work for the last 3 months and this was our chance to sell the most important audience in the company that what we had discovered was worth continuing. I was nervous, but didn't know what to do. I prayed to God for help and He led me to practice the presentation from 2200 - 2400 the night before. As a result of the practice, He was able to keep me calm and deliver a knock out presentation.

The third was the most important. I've been struggling for 18 months with my church leadership. I come from a very high view of preaching. Meaning that I believe it is the spoken word of the Gospel that calls men's hearts to saving faith. I felt that our leadership wasn't properly warning their hearers that they were in danger without saving faith. I struggled for a long time and finally wrote a letter to one of the leaders. I then prayed to God for weeks seeking patience and humility waiting for his response. I finally had a chance to speak with the leader today and my fears were much relieved. Praise be to God. The leader was equally concerned. He heard my thoughts and revealed that the Lord had been nudging him similarly to point to Jesus more in the various opportunities the church has to speak to an audience.

I was so worried in each one of these situations, that my spoken word wouldn't be enough to convince my hearers of issues or concerns that I felt were important. Praying to Jesus really has brought me peace in each of those circumstances. I really give Him the credit for the successes not me. Now the tricky part will be trusting in Christ when God chooses to lead me to Him through 'negative' experiences. I pray that I can remember this day as a testimony to His faithfulness in those possible dark days to come.