Pleasant Stone Devotional Meditation: November 10

“… I am the Lord thy God, that divided the sea … And I have put my words in thy mouth, and I have covered thee in the shadow of mine hand …” ~ Isaiah 51:15a, 16a

Here is a treasure for you among our “many-colored stones” if you are tongue-tied when you get up to speak in public. It is one I [Eugenia Price, the author] can promise will work if we are willing to give God His way in the timing of it.

We must also be willing to prove Him. We must be willing to get to our feet and begin.

I had been a Christian about six months when I was given my first job before a microphone. Up to then I worked on the director’s side of the control room window. But here I was with an open microphone before me and a wooden tongue which would do nothing but chip off splinters when I tried to use it.

Day after day I listened to myself on tape and wanted to die. I felt my listeners must be longing for my extinction even more than I longed for it. And after a few painful weeks, I came to realize radio couldn’t be too difficult for Jesus Christ, even with me at the microphone! After all, if He “divided the sea,” can’t He put words in our mouths? Didn’t He create our mouths in the first place?

Following the radio ordeal, I then had to begin facing crowds of various sizes. This was my very first attempt at public speaking and I was thirty-four years old. He kept His promise here too. He covered my embarrassment and my self-consciousness as I let Him. As I became more certain that He would cover me in the shadow of His hand, I became more and more willing to put myself in His hands at those difficult times. He will speak through you according to His need of you. He makes absolutely no exceptions when He promises a thing.

“The Lord God will help me; therefore I shall not be confounded … I know that I shall not be ashamed.