My Help Comes from the Lord

I admit that I have a bad habit of segregating the secular from my faith. But lately I am learning to let God work even in the areas of my life I once thought He wouldn’t really care about—like my job for example.

For the past few months I have been struggling at work because I was asked to learn a new platform that has in no way ever been a part of my credentials. Learning it wouldn’t really benefit me, but the project had a need. It was okay for a while since when it was turned over to me by the previous subject matter expert (SME), the tasks mostly consisted of troubleshooting existing or pre-built integrations. But then the client started asking me to build an integration from scratch that was too complex for a resource like me who had no background whatsoever with the platform and how everything works. For two months I dreaded standup meetings and being asked how things were going because every day I would just feel dumb and dumber. But slowly, I started to learn how to ask for help when I needed it, and eventually the integration that I was asked to work on was in a good enough working condition to be tested.

We presented the integration to the client’s technical team and they found one area in the flow that could potentially cause issues downstream. They proposed an error handling logic that got me frantic once again. The behavior they wanted didn’t seem feasible. At wits end, I consulted one of the SMEs we previously had on the project. But since he was already on another project, his availability was scarce. Fortunately for me, he gave me enough time to ask him questions last Friday.

When I consulted with him last Friday, I told him the feedback we got from the client and asked for his input on how we can implement the behavior they wanted. His response wasn’t favorable. He told me that adding more components to the integration would only introduce more risks to how it was already designed.

When I came back to my project manager yesterday (Monday) and relayed the response I got, he asked me if I could ask the SME again for a feedback on another idea he had as a workaround. I spent yesterday waiting for a response from the SME but he was not available.

This morning, my project manager asked for an update and I didn’t have any good news to tell him. But right after I explained the problem I was having, an idea crossed my mind.

I asked my project manager to give me a few minutes to try out that idea. After about thirty minutes of updating the integration, I ran it and looked out for any errors in the logs. No red meant everything was successful. I asked my project manager to check if the file that should have been renamed in the FTP folder was renamed. He confirmed that it was renamed and we were all pleasantly surprised!

The interesting thing about this is that I have absolutely no clue why that idea even crossed my mind! I have never used that component before and therefore I did not know what it did…the SME I consulted didn’t suggest or think of using that component…I didn’t know where I can find any kind of documentation on how I could implement what I want the integration to do… The only reason why I know that component even exists is because I had heard someone mention it before, without really explaining to me what it did and what it was for. You get the idea, right? It couldn’t have been me!

My project manager congratulated me for figuring it out but I was also so baffled at what had just happened. I told him, “I praise God for giving me wisdom! OMG. I don’t even know how I thought of that idea! I didn’t even ask [the SME] if I can do it like that and just ran with it and it worked!”

Later on in the afternoon I got a chance to talk with the SME and share what happened, even the part where I gave God the glory. He teased me for “now being an expert” because he admitted that he also hadn’t thought of that idea. I told him, “Right now I feel like never has the verse, ‘My help comes from the Lord,’ felt truer for me! It was Him who helped me! I know it was!”

I spent the rest of the day just on a high from the goodness of God. Call me crazy, I don’t care. I know that that wisdom was from the Lord. That help was from Him. This is my God.

Every day I am learning that He cares about every little detail in my life no matter how small or insignificant I think they may be. And every day I learn to surrender a new thing that I haven’t yet surrendered to Him.

I pray that we all learn that our Christian duties are not just in church or religious gatherings, but also in the places where God has strategically placed us. There are no coincidences with God. Everything He does is intentional. And so if you’re like me who sometimes struggles to find your purpose in where you are, just ask Him and He’ll reveal it to you. Maybe not everything all at once, but He will eventually. Just grab onto the little by little until you can fit them all together to see the bigger picture.