Find the right job for you

In my country, India, many people have no jobs, especially youth. Parents' plans to put their children in the right career are proving futile. But anyone can find satisfying results in his or her search for a good job by relying on God.

God is infinite good and has an infinite supply of employment for each one of His children. We can prove this in our lives.

Christ Jesus has shown us the way. He obeyed God's direction in every detail of his life and career. He taught people how to turn to God for help. He said: "Take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?...for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you" (Matt. 6:31-33).

Jesus' business was doing good. His mission was to do God's will. Once, when he was 12 and his family was in Jerusalem, he left his parents and sat in the Temple with the doctors, listening and asking them questions. When his parents found him in the Temple, his mother asked him why he had left them. He responded by asking them, "How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" (Luke 2:49)

When we turn to God to know His will, and listen to Him, He guides us. As God's children, made in His image, our true nature expresses wisdom, intelligence, patience, love. Each of these qualities has its source in God. God is our employer. Our real business is to express good in daily life.

Our daughter saw this. Yet, despite job training, she was not able to find work. Everything we tried had failed, and we were ready to stop and pray. We found strength in the Bible's account of Joseph's life. He was sold to strangers and later imprisoned. But his trust in divine guidance and confidence in God's all-power didn't falter. He listened quietly for God's direction. He followed this direction. And eventually he became governor of the land.

This statement by Mary Baker Eddy in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" also helped us: "To those leaning on the sustaining infinite, to-day is big with blessings" (pg. vii). This elevated our understanding of God as being infinite Love.

Our daughter's prayer was to be willing to do whatever God wanted her to do. She sought God's will for a bright future. With the encouragement of her mother, she studied Hindi, and passed "Vidwan," a degree of graduation. After her marriage, she successfully completed Hindi pandit training, a program that trains qualified graduates to teach Hindi at the high-school level. She appeared for the Hindi pandit-recruitment examination, received one of the top seven scores in the exam, and was successful in the interview.

She was then posted as an apprentice to a school at an interior village, far away from her husband's quarters. They had a very young child, and it wasn't considered safe for her to stay alone with the child in that village. So she was forced to travel six hours daily, using three buses each way. She found this to be frustrating.

We prayed to know that God's provision and protection would never fail, and that she was the idea of God. So there was actually no cause for frustration. We knew that however hopeless the human condition may appear, it is powerless before the healing power of God.

Changes slowly took place. The government, of its own accord, temporarily relaxed the rule restricting transfers during the apprenticeship period, and our daughter was able to transfer to a school that was nearer home. The post there had just been vacated by a woman who had also been looking to God for help, and she was able to transfer to a place of her choice. Both women were happy.

God's abundant goodness made this possible. Through listening to God, all can feel His wonderful direction. Our true business is to listen to Him, express Him, and glorify Him.

Articles like this one appear in 13 different languages in the magazine The Herald of Christian Science.

(c) Copyright 2000. The Christian Science Publishing Society