Concerned about earning a living?

IF asked why we work, many of us would respond, ``To support my family.'' Employment often becomes equated with earning a living, and this is understandable. Yet when it does, the emphasis may shift from ``living'' to ``earning''! We may respond as we do out of love for our family and an unselfed desire to provide for its well-being. But there is another approach we can take that shifts the focus from a possibly burdensome sense of earning, back to living -- while also ensuring that our family responsibilities are wholly and satisfyingly fulfilled.

In the Bible we read of the covenant between God and the Israelites, stated so simply in Jeremiah: ``Ye shall be my people, and I will be your God.'' 1 God has created man in His image, to bear witness to His nature. He has made each of us to express His qualities in a distinct and blessed way. That is our God-given job. And as we do our job, we become conscious of the marvelous way in which God does His, of how He cares for us, meeting our needs and those of our families, often in ways far exceedin g expectations.

Christ Jesus demonstrated our relationship to God to be one of spiritual sonship. Acknowledging that ``the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do,'' 2 Jesus expressed God, his Father, in all that he did. He lived among the people the very qualities that constitute God's nature. And he revealed that his Father is our Father as well, that as God's spiritual offspring, each of us is also heir to the divine nature.

Because Jesus expressed the divine nature, people were naturally drawn to him to be taught, regenerated, healed. His sole concern was to express God. Consequently, opportunities to demonstrate God's nature were constantly forthcoming. And fulfilling his God-appointed tasks, he trusted God implicitly to care for his needs. What a marvelous and reassuring approach to employment and the meeting of needs!

Our approach can be the same. God has given each of us high tasks to accomplish: each of us is to express His nature in an individual manner. For God to be fully expressed, each one is essential. In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy3 we read: ``God is indivisible. A portion of God could not enter man; neither could God's fulness be reflected by a single man, else God would be manifestly finite, lose the deific character, and become less than God. Allness i s the measure of the infinite, and nothing less can express God.'' 4

So in truth, each of us is always fully, satisfyingly employed in being the very image of God. We begin to realize this remarkable fact as we shift our focus from earning to living -- to doing God's will, expressing His nature. And as we do this, we're able to overcome employment limitations sometimes associated with the economy, with lack of education, with race, sex, age, and so forth.

Turning to our Father, we find the true meaning of job enrichment. We discover the talents and qualities that uniquely qualify us for a position that blesses us, our families, and all who are touched by the work we do. Living our heritage as God's beloved offspring, we realize our inheritance in a way that truly satisfies our every need. 1 Jeremiah 30:22. 2 John 5:19. 3 The Discoverer of Christian Science and founder of this newspaper. 4 Science and Health, p. 336.