I found a book in my office written by Michael Cassidy in 1986, called 'A Passion for Preaching'. The other day I started to read it and I felt encouraged by it. I feel like I can relate to it, so I have shared a bit about what he says in the book.

In it he reveals his struggles growing up, specifically with feeling inadequate and having a terrible and traumatic fear of doing anything in public. He admits that he was so paralysed with nerves about speaking in front of others that in three years of Bible studies and discussions in college he didn't utter a sentence. 

Billy Graham came to Cambridge to speak and he witnessed evangelism in a new way and he longed to be able to preach like Billy Graham. But he felt like it wasn't for him, that he was just a school teacher. It was on this night that he heard God saying to him "I want you to do city evangelism in Africa." He was at a Christian conference centre in California shortly after this and God was telling him to share his testimony that night in front of the students. He felt terribly insecure and all afternoon was sweating and he was controlled by terror.

This is what happened when he stood up to go to the front: "I wanted to run. But the Lord would not let me go. He wanted me to speak publicly and share my story . .  My hands sweated. My throat constricted. I wanted to die. Then something took me over. The story flowed. The words came. I was speaking in public. Almost preaching! And blessing fell on the meeting . . God had made His strength, some of it at least, perfect in desperate weakness."

After that each time he spoke he managed to pull it off and blessing flowed. He writes that "The chains of paralysis in my spirit and nervous system, as well as in my speaking, were slowly being broken." He continues by saying that Joshua 1:5 is his favourite verse for emergencies ". . . as I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will not fail you or forsake you."

"My testimony, forty-five years later, is that he is true to his word. He has never failed me. Even now preaching is often to me like walking on water for the first time. But our Lord is faithful. He does not fail or forsake. What he calls us to do, He enables us to do. His strength is made perfect in weakness." (Michael Cassidy)