You are employed—now

Recent reports have said that the financial and housing markets have begun inching their way upward. Welcome news! Less welcome, however, is the outlook for employment.

For example, the jobless rate in the United States stood at 9.7 percent in August, its highest point in 26 years (National Public Radio, September 4, 2009). And another report predicts unemployment in the 30 member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) will approach 10 percent by the second half of 2010 (The Journal of Commerce online, September 16, 2009).

For anyone who’s been in the job market lately—perhaps for some time—these statistics might serve as a kind of justification for feeling restricted on the path to employment. But there’s a higher road that’s completely open to everyone, everywhere. It’s the path of prayer—the healing prayer that lifts us far above discouraging statistics and into the light of God’s universal and progressive love for everyone.

Prayer helps us see clearly the immediate assurance and comfort of God’s love for all His children, His purpose for each of us. There’s no delay in seeing God’s good purpose for anyone. Meaningful employment is always ours because the Creator of all actively involves His creation—you and me—in His service.

I’ve asked myself, What is that service? One Bible passage describes it this way: “What doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul.”

Here’s another helpful way of looking at that passage: “What do you think God expects from you? Just this: Live in his presence in holy reverence, follow the road he sets out for you, love him, serve God, your God, with everything you have in you” (Deut. 10:12, Eugene Peterson, The Message).

Living in God’s presence, following His unerring direction with complete trust, helps me realize that real security—our true and lasting assets—isn’t found in a certain job with a certain employer in a particular building. Serving God “with everything you have in you” means that you’re never underemployed. There may be times when there are gaps between jobs, but none of us can ever be without the qualities of honesty, the ability to think, to act intelligently and wisely, and to be creative and flexible, adaptable in every situation. These permanent, spiritual qualities are something the world needs. There’s a strong demand for them; therefore, there is a demand for each of us—as the individual expression of those qualities.

In my own career, I’ve had to learn during stretches of unemployment that God’s love never wears out; divine Principle cannot be “laid off” or put down. This was especially helpful at one time when my job was eliminated in a corporate restructuring. Our daughters were small, and our main income source had just disappeared. No severance package was offered. The confusion and abruptness of my termination touched off waves of fear. How would this affect my family, let alone my future job prospects? Would we land on our feet—or come crashing down?

One idea that helped tremendously in bringing stillness and calm was this: “Be not afraid of sudden fear, neither of the desolation of the wicked, when it cometh. For the Lord shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken.”

In prayer, I began to feel God’s loving presence and see He was upholding my family and me. God would never let us stumble and fall; He was in fact our inexhaustible and abundant means of support. One amazing evidence of this was that the apple tree in our backyard that year produced many bushels of perfect fruit (something it had never done before). My wife canned applesauce, made and froze many pies, and found other ways to preserve this harvest. This food helped sustain us for many months. Later, when I was offered a new position with a different firm, these spiritual lessons stayed with me—and have stayed through all the jobs I’ve held since then.

As the fully employed expressions of divine Love, we can’t be held hostage by an organization’s agenda, a tight job market, or a sluggish economic climate. Mary Baker Eddy wrote in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: “If you decide that climate or atmosphere is unhealthy, it will be so to you. Your decisions will master you, whichever direction they take.”

If circumstances lead you to believe that employment prospects in your geographic area have dried up or are hopeless, you may find yourself looking for quite some time. But the answer comes in expecting that active prayer empowers you to “follow the road He sets out for you.” It’s vital to identify yourself as an active, needed participant in God’s service—fully engaged in bringing healing and blessing to all humankind. Then, it becomes a whole lot easier to reject the unhealthy climate of thought that seeks to label you, or anyone, as a laid-off, unemployed mortal, struggling and separate from God.

A friend of mine discovered this when a family need brought her from the West Coast to the Midwest. With this move came the need for a new job. Four months went by quickly. My friend had applied for jobs in her area of expertise and salary range, but with no success—and her cash was quickly getting depleted. She did manage to lease an apartment, but after several more months of daily prayer and searching, she still couldn’t find a job.

My friend asked me to pray with her, and together we looked deeply into the meaning and promise of God’s grace, which loves and supports each of His children, and what it really meant to see herself as being of value to the world, rather than as unemployed or undervalued.

By that time, signs of last fall’s economic slump were rapidly appearing. Job prospects seemed virtually nonexistent. But we found a relevant idea on page 66 of Science and Health, which pointed out that “trials teach mortals not to lean on a material staff,—a broken reed, which pierces the heart. We do not half remember this in the sunshine of joy and prosperity.” The passage adds that “Love propagates anew the higher joys of Spirit, which have no taint of earth. Each successive stage of experience unfolds new views of divine goodness and love.”

This was such a powerful rebuttal to the overwhelming appearance that her employment search was going nowhere—especially after she’d lost the lease on her apartment and had to move in with relatives. But a breakthrough idea emerged: She lived under God’s divine law of goodness, not under the formulas of man-made economics.

A month later, she had three interviews in one week. But she never felt pressured to take a job just to earn money. Instead, following God’s leading, she accepted one of the offers. It didn’t pay the salary she’d had before, and it didn’t have management responsibility. But it allowed her to love and support others from a Christian standpoint.

But what about the argument that the job search has worn us down, and time has taken its toll on our once-hopeful outlook? Just as it’s natural for divine Love and Principle to produce health today, it’s just as right for us to realize full freedom from fear and job-related limitations now, in this moment. The infinite, caring presence of divine Love removes the idea of delay from the fulfillment of every right purpose. In Science and Health, Mary Baker Eddy quoted Paul the Apostle: “ ‘Now,’ cried the apostle, ‘is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation,’—meaning, not that now men must prepare for a future-world salvation, or safety, but that now is the time in which to experience that salvation in spirit and in life.”

In the progressive, spiritually healthy climate of divine Life and Love, purpose and immediate accomplishment are inseparable. No more of God’s power and presence will be available next week, next month, or even a decade from now than is already here. If it still seems that full and right employment is delayed, we may need to remember that healing is not a time-related process.

In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” He taught that since God’s creation is already and immediately perfect, there’s no time or process involved in gaining perfection—wholeness and completeness—for ourselves.

We don’t need to look to the future for fulfillment, or to gain something we’ve never lost. If you stand in front of a mirror, it doesn’t take time for your reflection to show up. As God’s reflection, you have an immediate, permanent, and uninterrupted relationship with Him. Science and Health points to this: “The relations of God and man, divine Principle and idea, are indestructible in Science; and Science knows no lapse from nor return to harmony, but holds the divine order or spiritual law, in which God and all that He creates are perfect and eternal, to have remained unchanged in its eternal history.”

There’s a postscript to my friend’s job search. Just a month or so after she accepted the position, the company’s business slowed markedly. Management was forced to cut staff, and her position was eliminated. However, less than two weeks later, she was called for several new interviews. During one of them, she was offered a new position that utilizes the talents and spiritual qualities she’d brought to the earlier position, as well as her management, sales, and technical experience. She and the job are growing together.

An unexpected development? Without question! But it shows the importance of accepting that now indeed “is the time in which to experience that salvation in spirit and in life,” in the employment market, and on the job.

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