Signs, Wonders, and Jobs.
Written by Dan McDonald
Recently I was talking with a
younger person about their looking to the Lord for a change in life direction. The
person was thinking of trying to find a different job, a different location to
live, maybe even a change of cities. Their desire was to seek and to do the
will of God. I thought of how on a couple of occasions I had been in such a
situation and how on two occasions God seemed to lead me in very different
ways. So I am reluctant to put God in a box and tell the person how God will
lead on this occasion but I thought the differences between these two times of
my seeking God regarding potential job changes might be the sort of testimony
that might encourage someone going through such a season at this time.
I grew up in a family that did not
attend church. We really had no determined viewpoint about religion or belief
in God. It was neither agnosticism nor atheism that caused us not to go to
church. It was simply that our family lifestyle treated religion pretty much as
irrelevant to everyday living. My dad was certainly a diligent worker, a
provider for his family, a friend to those in the community and he took things
in stride whether hardships or blessings. He was in many ways a stoic with a
firm set of moral principles. Late in my high school years I began to seek to
see if there was a God and by my early years in college I had become a
committed believer in Christ. During my college years I studied history as my
major and philosophy as a minor and decided when I graduated I would go on to
seminary and study theology. But by my senior year in college I was not at all
sure about my intended course.
By that time I was tired of school.
I had been going to school for sixteen years and hardly knew anything about
life outside of school. I wondered if three more years of school would actually
prepare me for the pastoral ministry I imagined myself doing one day. Also my
time in Christian groups had been spent almost completely within college groups
where the range of humanity was from the age of eighteen to the age of
twenty-four. I began to believe I needed to simply be a member of a church with
people from the point of being carried in the womb to people being helped in
their old age. If I was to be called to the ministry then I would be called to
be a member of a church with people of all ages, and I would be called to
understand their working lives in blessing and poverty. I decided I needed to
get a job, join a church, live in the working class world and then maybe later
consider seminary.
I was living in the
Bloomington-Normal area in central Illinois. I started looking for a factory
job. I noticed this one factory next to a blue water tower. This thought popped
into my mind that I would work there. I thought that was a crazy thought. I
drove around putting applications into a number of other places with my
application being accepted politely but with little indication that I would be
seriously considered. Finally I went to the factory next to the water tower. I
filled out my application. As for job experience I had worked one summer in a
factory operating a punch press but had done no set ups. The personnel employee
looked over my application I gave her without much encouragement and then
suddenly she said to someone in the next office, here is an applicant with
punch press experience. The voice from the next office said “Send him in.” A
moment later I was talking to the plant manager and when the conversation ended
he said, “Will you be available for work Monday morning at seven?”
At that point in my life the whole
sensation of having that strange thought that I would work in the factory next
to the water tower was a wonderful confirmation to me that this was where God
wanted me at this point in time in my life.
Several years later I had a very
different experience. By this time I was living in Oklahoma, where I have lived
now for most of my life. I was going through something of a difficult time. I
had moved to Oklahoma during oil boom years and was now surviving in oil bust
years, working a job doing contract labor with low wages and few benefits. One
could live from paycheck to paycheck but it was a no frills life. I was
discouraged but was appreciative of my church. I had put in an application for
a job at a factory in a town quite a ways away from where I was living. The
factory paid good wages and had a good benefits package. After I put the
application in, more than a year passed and I had pretty much forgotten about
it. Then one day I was called and asked if I would come in for an interview and
if the interview went as expected I would probably be hired. I was excited
about the possibility. But I wasn’t really ready to leave my church.
I prayed and asked God to show me
what I was supposed to do. I looked over Philippians 4:6-7. I was praying and
asking God for direction when I noticed that the promise was not that God would
lead me each and every time to make the decision for me, but that as I sought
him and submitted myself to him that he would guard me in Christ. It was a
moment when instead of being encouraged to make this decision or that decision
that God’s promise seemed to be that he would guard me regardless of what
decision I made. I felt a sense of there being freedom in Christ. I didn’t have
to feel that the whole future of my Christian life would be determined on the
basis of my making the absolute best choice in taking or not taking the job
being offered to me. I could not know the future of what my decision would
bring about, but I could rest assured that God’s decision to guard me in Christ
was settled. It was a lesson that has encouraged me often. I decided to stay
where I was because I was in a church where the people around me knew me. I
felt like I needed that more at the time than I needed a job with good wages
and benefits. Bachelors can make such decisions. I asked for guidance about
what I should do concerning a job. But God chose instead to imply that it didn’t
matter so much as my understanding that he was with me in Christ through thick
and thin.
I still pray for direction, but
these days I don’t think the future of the world depends on the decisions I
make so much as the decision which God made when he set his love upon us in
Christ Jesus. So pray about your job situations, and then know that no matter
what is before us that we can never foresee; God has determined to guard us in
Christ Jesus. “So be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and
supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and
the peace of God which surpasses all comprehension, shall guard your hearts and
minds through Christ Jesus.” –Philippians 4:6-7
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