Waiting on God Correctly

 

For those of you who have read numerous of my posts, you will know that I have not worked to earn money for nearly six years now. I was previously self-employed, but the last invoice that I sent out from my business was sent in November of 2019. Since then, we have lived by God's provision. This is not to say that things have not been difficult, because they absolutely have been. There have been times when bills have gone unpaid and fresh food was scarce for us, but at the same time, we have always had food in the house; we have never gone hungry. There have been some ways that God has provided for us, the method of which I have not particularly appreciated. I have even complained to God about the manner of His provision! Talk about being ungrateful! But God, in His patience with me, gently but firmly told me that He decides how and when to provide for those who have committed to waiting on Him.

I don't think that I have stated so yet, but God has released me to return to the workforce. This release was given to me in the beginning of September, and I have been looking for work ever since. I will tell you that the search has been frustrating.

Keep in mind that I haven't actively searched for employment for about 22 years. The last time that I was in a position that I was actively searching for work was after I had been moved from one position in the company that I had been working for into what I had considered a lesser position due to some apparent conflict with my previous manager; a conflict that I had no knowledge of. Thankfully, my new manager saw the potential in me, and even though it took about seven months due to the meddling of the business owner, my manager finally moved me into what was one of my favourite jobs that I have ever had while working for someone else.

I eventually left that job to pursue self-employment, and the short time in the last 19 years that I have worked for someone else, I moved into that position having barely applied for it, never mind conducting a job search. I spoke with someone that I knew in the company, who told the manager of my interest in the position. I met with the manager and was shortly afterwards offered the position.

Well now, here I am, actively searching for a job. To add to the frustration, I am currently facing a shortage of funds to cover my family's living expenses. Currently, I am comfortable in the knowledge that I can cover our monthly expenses for one more month. After that, I am going to be in trouble.

Unfortunately, this is not an unfamiliar circumstance for us; it is merely one that I have not had to face for about two years. Over these last two years, we have been living off of an inheritance that I received when my Mom died. This has not been the way that I would have liked to have spent said inheritance, but this is what I have been lead to do by God. He gave us a couple of years of relative ease while still relying on nothing else but His provision. Now we are again facing tight finances and He has told me that it is time to look for work.

At this point, there may be those of you who are thinking that what has happened is that I saw that our finances were getting low and I have convinced myself that God has told me to look for work. This is not the case. I have been watching our finances dwindle for quite a while now, and I have been asking God for permission to get a job for probably most of this year already. I was hoping that He would allow it and thereby allow me to hold onto at least a little bit of my Mom's gift to me; but that was not to be the case. What in fact happened is that God gave me permission to look for work, and then a few days later, I discovered that I had made some kind of accounting error and we were significantly more short of funds than I had realized. When I discovered the truth of the matter, I was overcome with a sudden wave of warmth over my whole body, which was a result of the momentary panic that I felt, before I remembered that I have given my finances to God a long time ago, and as long as I leave them there, I am in good hands. And I am in good hands, because God had acted before I had even realized the situation that we were in. That does not always make things easy to bear, but it does give me hope for the future.

Now, back to the job search. I have currently applied for just over a dozen positions in the last two months. That may not seem like a lot, but I am in a situation where I need a good paying job to cover our basic living expenses. I can't get a service desk job at some lumber yard or auto parts store or find some position working in a factory and be able to cover our expenses. Our rent is crazy high for this area, but there are no reasonable alternatives given what I need. Regardless of this, I have applied for a few somewhat entry level positions, but I have received a surprising number of responses to my applications that I am over qualified for the positions that I have applied for, so I will not be considered for those positions. Even though I am just eager to work, I can't get hired due to my knowledge and experience. 

The problem on the other end of the spectrum is that everybody wants you to have a degree of some kind for their managerial or production positions that they are looking to fill. I have managerial experience, but I have been in the workforce long enough that degrees just weren't necessary for every job out there, so I was working instead of memorizing stuff in order to pass a test in a classroom. I have been applying for all manner of different positions with different companies, but I can't even get to the interview stage. So my knowledge and experience is proving to be both a blessing and a curse.

Here is where the waiting comes in.

There is one job that, when I saw it, I experienced what I would refer to as a quickening of the Spirit within me. Only one job. Everything else that I have applied for I have felt almost nothing towards; that position would only be a means to an end. I won't say what that one job is, but it is a management position in a field that is right in my wheelhouse. When I felt the quickening, I went on to read the job posting with renewed interest, and of course I applied for it.

Now for a couple of bits of background information. First, it is somewhat known that this employer is never in a hurry to hire people. The position was listed for two weeks and it stated that they would not be contacting anyone for interviews for two to four weeks after the listing expired. I found the job listing on the first day and I applied that same day. To this point, I have been waiting on that job for seven weeks. There is a possibility that my application has been discarded and that I will not get a call for an interview, but the Spirit in me keeps reminding me of the quickening that I felt, so I have not yet given up hope. 

The second bit of information is that I have asked God to arrange it so that I will not start one job just to be given the opportunity to start a better job shortly after, particularly whatever job it is that God wants to have me at. So while it is frustrating to apply and get rejected over and over again, or apply and receive few interview requests (only one so far), I have done this to myself. Ideally, under the conditions that I have asked of God, I should have one interview and get hired for that one position with no other possibilities.

So I wait. But this weekend, it occurred to me that I have potentially not been waiting correctly. Now you are asking, "How can one not wait correctly?" When I have been praying about my work situation, I have been hearing God tell me, again and again, "Just wait." I have been trusting that God will lead me to the job that He wants for me. In the meantime, I have been continuing to search and apply for whatever jobs I find that I think I can do well in, that I might enjoy and that will pay the bills. My thinking has been that while God can get me a position that I have not applied for, it is much more likely that He will get me into a position that I have applied for. So I have been searching, applying and waiting.

But, I have been wondering why it is taking so long to hear about a position that I am so eager for; a position that I have at least some faith that God will place me into, which means that I will need to be interviewed for that position. Over the last seven years or so, I have been told many times by God that I was supposed to "Wait on Me." It has been a very specifically worded instruction. "Wait on Me", or also "Trust Me." This time it is different, and it has taken me almost two months to catch onto that. What is God saying to me this time? "Just wait".

And here is the kicker; have I been "just" waiting? No, I haven't. I have been searching and writing and working to try to convince some person that I have never met or even talked to that I am the person that they are looking for to fill a job position. I have been exerting myself trying to make something happen.

This weekend I looked up the word 'just' in my old, physical set of dictionaries. I love those dictionaries. In a world wherein the meanings of long-used words and terms are constantly being altered and changed, we cannot trust the internet to give us the true meaning of words. That is why I still have and frequently use my physical paper dictionaries, and my physical paper Bible for the very same reason. Nobody can change the words without me knowing it.

So what did I find when I looked up the word 'just'? All of the definitions were useless to me, but I did find a small separated paragraph that illumined my thinking. This paragraph says the following; "In formal English the limiting word just is placed immediately before the word, phrase or clause it modifies to prevent ambiguity". Just to be safe, I also looked up "ambiguity", even though I was quite comfortable with the meaning of the word, but the definition actually helped me in my struggle even though I was familiar with the word. The definition of 'ambiguity' is as follows; "the possibility of two or more meanings". So, according to my trusty old dictionaries, the use of the word 'just' is to ensure that there is no possibility that there can be any more than one meaning of the following word or phrase.

In other words, when God is telling me to "Just wait", He is not telling me to wait on Him while I undertake other efforts to achieve my goal; He is telling me that I am only supposed to wait, and to do nothing else in the meantime to achieve my goal. This means that I am to place the situation entirely into His hands and to see what He will do.

Out of curiousity, I looked through my prayer journal which I keep for exactly this reason to see when God started telling me to "Just wait". What I found is that He began to say this to me only after I had found and applied for this one position that I am aiming for. I had applied for several other positions before this time, but was not yet told to "Just wait". If I take God's words and His timing literally, this tells me that I have already applied for the job that He has in mind for me and that the situation is currently entirely out of my hands to affect. If it is my goal to obey Him, all I can do is wait. 

The waiting that I was practising before is an act of faith in itself, but to 'just wait' and to not pursue the possibilities of other jobs takes that faith to another level. It is placing our housing situation, our food and everything else back in God's hands, where I claimed to have placed them years ago, but which I have apparently snatched them back from. I spent this morning's devotions talking to God about this entire issue, and I have committed myself to not looking for work anymore, at least for this week. I will have to revisit this next week again if we come to that. I told my wife about this, and I could tell that she is nervous about this, but the last several years has shown us that God is able to intervene and provide our needs when we obey Him, so we are placing this into His hands and committing ourselves to "just" waiting.

It may be presumptuous of me to do so, but I am expecting to receive a request for an interview for my desired position some time this week. I am presuming that God has been delaying the hiring process for this position because I have not been entirely obedient to His word to me. This is my current exercise of faith. We will see if, when and how God acts to provide me with employment while I am "just" waiting on Him.

I will keep you posted and I will post an update right here when something happens.

Isaiah 40:31 "Yet those who wait for the Lord Will gain new strength; They will mount up with wings like eagles, They will run and not get tired, They will walk and not become weary."

This is my 100th article that I have posted on this platform. If you are finding value in what I am sharing, please let me know by submitting a comment or dropping an email. If you want to learn more about me and my walk of faith over the last several years, as well as what God has been showing me, feel free to check out my other articles which can be found here.