Don't Panic

For two weeks I've been a human sponge, absorbing, learning, absorbing some more, extrapolating, questioning and overloading. Big emphasis on the overloading part.

New job, new things to encounter and learn. It's a brainful.

And then they asked me to do some important things in front of the team leadership and to do it very quickly. I panicked. It's one thing to learn, and another to actually implement.

So as I sat in my office rapidly realizing I needed help just walking through what I had to do, in comes one of my new friends at work. She sat down and walked me through all I had in front of me. And this in spite of her working 70 hour weeks on a huge deadline.

Her comment? Only this, "Don't worry Jack, I've got your back!"

Instantly I felt better, calmer, and rather than guilty, I felt comforted. She knew I am new and she knew that it is important for the team that I come up to speed appropriately, otherwise my failure becomes every one's failure. In short, her job was to train me.

How often God does the same thing I realize. He gives us an impossible assignment and then brings us through it.

He says, "Don't panic! Isa 52:12 NKJV - For you shall not go out with haste, Nor go by flight; For the LORD will go before you, And the God of Israel [will] [be] your rear guard."

In other words, "Don't worry Jack, I've got your back!"

I've faced this situation so many times in my new job, but daily I fight that fear with the PROMISE that if God brought me here, He will make me succeed. That is so comforting.

The key is in the fight. Holding on to God's promise of being my rear guard and meditating on it gives me strength.

Then the fear flees far from me.

Don't panic.

~Jack