Like every college senior, I was faced with having to make the decision about my next step after graduation – what to do, where to be, and how to adjust. Like most Christians presented with uncertainties, I turned to God in prayer, as Philippians 4:6-7 reminds us. Initially, I started asking God where He wanted me to be, where the “right place” was, in terms of job and location. But at some point at beginning of second semester, God forced me to be completely honest with myself. I realized that my prayers about being in the “right place” were about me not God, about me wanting to receive maximal blessing. Whether God’s will was done in my life, whether God was glorified was secondary to my being blessed. By the end of senior year, I prayed instead that God would lead me to a place where I could love Him the most. It’s not that I no longer cared about the blessings, I still did but I also began to understand that loving God gives us purpose, direction and calling (as Jonathan mentioned earlier). I also began to understand that loving God is one of the most important blessings
Another important thing to remember as one makes decisions is that God is in control and that we can absolutely trust God. It’s not something I understood fully when I was praying, but it’s something I’ve realized in retrospect. As graduation approached, I received more job rejections and got increasingly anxious. I was stressed out about not finding a job, not having a means of financial support; I worried about what my parents would think and I started to question the value of my Emory degree. In Matthew 6:31-32, when Jesus says that the “Father knows” that we need these things, He means God KNOWS. I was looking for the wrong things. I thought I could handle a 60 hour work week, travel intensive, client facing, high paying consulting job. God had something else in mind. On the very last day of class, God offered me a job - a 45 hour work week, minimal travel, minimal client-interaction, research (not consulting) job. And you know what, God knew better! 18 months after starting work, I’m still finding things about my job that I appreciate - a good boss and mentor, multi-cultural colleagues, a flexible work schedule and a casual office environment – things I never realized mattered until I started working. God provides, He is Jehovah Jireh, it may look a little different in your lives, but God KNOWS and will provide.
