The Weekly Encourager – November 29, 2017 – Joy in the Job Search

Earlier this month, my husband lost his job. Due to restructuring, his position was eliminated (along with most of his department). The good news is that Dave saw the writing on the wall and was already thinking of looking around for another position, hopefully with a shorter commute. However, he is a 61-year-old white male, so maybe not the first choice of every employer.

I'm not really worried about his job at this point (more dreading the insurance hassle, #firstworldproblems). I'm confident that God will provide an even better opportunity for Dave, not just because Dave is a highly qualified worker, but because God's name is Jehovah-jireh, Yahweh Will Provide. If I have moments of doubt, I can just look to our history and see how He's always provided for us in the past. Thanks be to God, we have some savings, so we're still tithing and supporting Dave's brother as well as various missions. My husband is a very generous man, and I've learned that the more we give, the more God blesses us. We're doing fine!

Dave decided to keep a job search diary, and he'd like to share what he wrote a few days ago:

Day 6

Thanked God for arranging the timing of this. As a Christian, I know that God has something much greater planned for us than we are typically expecting. We lose a job, and immediately we think that all that God has in store for us is to get us another one. That's probably true, but God is also probably planning for us to meet new people through that job who we otherwise would not have come into contact with, or planning for us to have an impact in a situation involving something much more consequential than a mere job.

God is advancing His kingdom day by day. Our ultimate job is to serve Him and that means our primary occupation is kingdom-building. Working for our daily bread is a secondary occupation.

To the non-believer, this just appears like wish-fulfillment: you believers don't know what the future holds, so you just say that God is superintending over all of it, so no matter what happens, it was "God's will". This is superficially correct. We don't know what the future holds, and we do believe that God superintends over it.

But we do so not because we need a convenient excuse, but because this is explicitly promised in the scripture, and it is directly experienced in our personal lives. Time and time again, we see God leading us beside still waters, even in the shadow of death itself at times.

To believe that God is sovereign is, indeed, just a hope as long as we walk in this mortal life. But it is not an unfounded hope, nor a merely convenient one.

We're heading into the Christmas season with hope, joy, and prayer. “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.” - James 1:5 “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice!” - Philippians 4:4

God is faithful,