I dread walking into a room full of people. I rehearse conversations for hours afterward and pick apart everything I said. How do I stop?

“And Moses said unto the LORD, O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue. And the LORD said unto him, Who hath made man's mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have not I the LORD? Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say.”

Moses argues with God at the burning bush not out of rebellion but out of self-consciousness. He is convinced his speech will let him down in front of people who matter. God does not tell him he is wrong about himself. He redirects the question entirely toward who made the mouth in the first place. The call did not wait for Moses to become socially confident, and it did not depend on him becoming so.

“And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling.”

Paul is writing to a church that prized polished public speakers, and he admits that when he first arrived he was weak, frightened, and trembling. This is the apostle who planted churches across the empire. He is not performing humility; he is telling them that whatever happened in Corinth did not come from his composure. Nervousness in a room full of people is not evidence that God is absent from what you are doing.