Employment
By Marjorie F. Eddington
Categories: Employment, Gratitude (Thanksgiving), Putting God First Issue:
Some of you have asked us to address employment. There are so many different aspects of employment, so we’ll just begin this way.
Response (staff answer):
Proper employment is a right idea—contributing to society; providing for ourselves and/or our families; blessing to the world; feeling satisfied with the work we’re doing; being able to make ends meet, buy food, have housing; sharing our gifts, etc.
 So if we’re having a hard time finding a job or being satisfied in our work, how do we think and pray? The psalmist sings, “You [God] open wide your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing” (Ps 154:16 NABRE). This is not just a one-time thing, as the ISV shows with the translation—“keep on satisfying.” God is continually fulfilling our needs, constantly caring for us abundantly. God’s hand opens wide. God’s good gifts, which include proper employment, are not mediocre or skimpy; they are full, and they are there for us constantly.
Now, it’s our job to trust God to do God’s work. That, itself, is a full-time job—trusting God with our lives, turning over everything to God, getting our own wills out of the way so God can work through us.
Really, God is our employer, the best employer we could ever have—constant, loving, encouraging, helpful, always there for us. And we have plenty of work, as there are infinite opportunities to serve God, to glorify God, to share God’s love with others. With God as our employer, we are always employed.
We can be grateful for such employment. We can start with thankfulness, like Jesus did. Before Jesus fed the multitudes, he gave thanks and broke the bread he did have. His disciples and the others could have been wondering what in the world he was doing. Jesus didn’t start from the standpoint of lack—not enough, missed opportunity, no opportunity. He didn’t even get concerned by the very obvious evidence that there wasn’t enough.
Jesus started from the standpoint of infinity—infinite opportunity, infinite supply to meet the human need. He trusted God to provide for everybody. That ability to be grateful for what he did have opened the very “floodgates of heaven…without measure” (Mal 3:10 CSB), answering the needs of the people at the time, plus leftovers. Abundance manifested.
We can rise above our limited perception and expectations and expect good things to happen as we work for God: “I will open the windows of heaven and flood you with blessing after blessing” (Mal 3:10 CEV). Or put a different way: “Good things will come to you like rain falling from the sky. You will have more than enough of everything” (ERV). That’s a pretty awesome thought. So we want to make sure we’re doing our work—trusting God, shining God’s light, getting rid of small thinking, erasing the concept of lack, filling our thoughts with gratitude, looking for blessings.
Being employed by God, spiritualizing our concept of employment, being grateful for what we do have must be evidenced in our own daily experience. So we trust, and we trust some more, and we keep on trusting, and God keeps satisfying our needs—perhaps in ways we have never imagined. We can stop outlining how we’re going to get a job, stop worrying about not feeling satisfied in our current job, and take everything to God. That’s our work. The rest will follow. God’s blessings rain down on us.
For further study, here are other articles related to employment:
|
