In talking with a friend yesterday who has sent out what seems to him a thousand resumes with not one response, was understandably thinking, what am I'm going to do for work? This blog post came as a result of our conversation. Hope it helps someone out there. As a friend of mine in the UK has said, God is more interested in our availability than our ability. I like this thought.
And picking up on it, one who is faced with the need for gainful employment can get so focused on getting a call for an interview/ getting a job offer/ getting a salary that he misses out on something essential. Which is, how can I be more useful to God and my fellowman? How can I give? How can I serve?
Two spiritual truths have been of great help to me when one activity ceased and I wasn't sure was the next step was.
In the New Testament our Master says--no, Jesus commands--"Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again."
This is found in Luke, chapter 6.
And Mary Baker Eddy points out in her Message to her Church, 1901: "...rest assured you can never lack God's outstretched arm so long as you are in His service
The key thing here is getting the "giving", the "serving" part ahead of the "what's in it for me?" part. And God does need you, my friend, to serve Him in so many ways. He truly does, though this may seem too good to be true, especially to someone new to Christ and Christian Science.
If someone is hearing about Christian Science for the first time (and I'm sure people are, the Internet reaching far and wide the way it does) it may be helpful for me to introduce some ideas you may never have thought of. The teachings of this religion ,which was founded to reinstate the words and works of Christ Jesus, bring out that you and I and everyone else actually exist to bear witness to God, our Maker, to reflect Him in everything we do. Further, Christian Science, along with Jesus' teaching that the kingdom of God is already within us, states that we are His loved and needed expression, that our purpose is spiritual; therefore it is always intact. Whatever happens -- or doesn't happen -- in the human scene has no effect on this, if we realize it. This puts greater usefulness and productivity within immediate reach. God needs all of us to express His nature and being, and in fact that's why He created us. Opportunity to lead a fuller and richer life can't really be absent. And once a person realizes this, it causes things to move.
A last thought: I recall somewhere in the Old Testament is a statement to the effect, "Here I am, O Lord: send me". Don't know exactly where this is, but if any of you know, let me know in a comment. But it is the spirit in this that gets results, the willingness to be useful to God in the way He will open up. As that friend puts it, being available for God's use.
