“I will love You, O LORD, my strength. The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in Whom I will trust” (Psalm 18:1-2).

I was a junior in Bible college when the opportunity came to me to serve as the part-time assistant pastor at the Conklin Center Baptist Church in Conklin, New York. This dear church had a weekly television program as well as several radio stations over which the gospel was preached.

It was to be my first night in the  television studio. All I had to do at my first time of television taping was to be introduced to the television audience as the new assistant pastor, and then I was to pray. Without opening my eyes to look at my stopwatch, my prayer was to be about thirty seconds in duration.

Simple, right? Well let me tell you, was I ever nervous! All right. I will admit it. I was beyond being nervous. I was in sheer terror mode. As the studio lights came up and the director’s voice boomed into the studio as the countdown to taping began, the choir stood quietly in place, the senior pastor and I stood next to each other, the cameramen positioned himself correctly and the camera light came on and the cameraman pointed and the taping began. I was terrified!

I remember it as if it were last week! Here is what helped that night. I remembered that the Lord was my strength. I felt like my knees were shaking. My first several times were pretty terrifying. You will laugh at this. One night in the taping I came to my very last line on the lengthy script. It simply was, “And this is your assistant television pastor, Michael Peck, saying good-bye until next week.” Sounds simple, right? I even forgot my own name! I accidently said, “And this is your assistant television pastor, Wilford Young, no…this isn’t Wilford Young, this is…” And with that the director’s voice boomed, “CUT!  Pastor Peck has forgotten his name tonight folks!” The studio was in hysterics.

Things would go better in the weeks to come. In fact, with the Lord’s strength I even got to the point that I enjoyed television taping! So let me ask you a personal question. What is an area in your life that you need to depend on the Lord’s strength?

For today: The wonderful song “Jesus Loves Me” is so true: Do you remember the words, “They are weak; but He is strong.” This is so true indeed!