Without My Job, Who Am I?
It is highly likely that you know someone, a friend, family member, colleague or fellow church-goer who is unemployed. Maybe it’s you. Faced with a frightening shift in your sense of self, you may wonder, “Without my job, who am I?”
You may try not to let your occupation define you, but there is no denying the fact that self-worth and identity are wrapped up in activities that make us feel useful, productive, and competent. For many of us, those activities are work related.
If you are facing this holiday season with no job, wondering how you will muster the “merry” in Christmas, I want to encourage you.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
Keep Your Perspective
Whether you realize it or not, God has already worked supernaturally in your life. Think back to the most desperate times in your life. God got you through them. What about the amazing opportunities you’ve had? Doesn’t God deserve credit for them? God has been faithful in your life.
He will continue to be faithful in your future. Trust that His plan for your life is better than yours. Know that, regardless of the depths of your struggle, there is always someone in a darker place who is waiting for you to pray, inspire and help.
He will continue to be faithful in your future. Trust that His plan for your life is better than yours. Know that, regardless of the depths of your struggle, there is always someone in a darker place who is waiting for you to pray, inspire and help.
Keep an Open Mind
I was a 10th round draft pick for the Los Angeles Rams in 1982. Two years into my professional football career, I was battling a drug problem and living an immoral lifestyle. After being cut, I signed as a free agent with the San Diego Chargers, where I played for four years. If you told me during that time I would eventually become a pastor, I would have laughed at you. No one was more surprised than me when an injury ended my professional football career in 1986.
Transformation was necessary for me and my life. While I identified myself primarily as an athlete, God had another plan for my life. He does for you as well.
Keep Your Hope
1 John 5:14 says, “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.”
At some point in each of our lives we will be faced with a seemingly hopeless situation – at least hopeless in the eyes of those who do not know Jesus. Hope is never dead when faith in God is available to us. Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1). Faith enables us to pursue something tangible while relying on something invisible to help us get it.
Keep on Praying
God has prepared ideal circumstances for you to fulfill what He has called you to do. Sometimes we do not realize how extensive and strategic God’s influence has been until we examine our lives in the rear view mirror. If you look carefully enough, you will recognize His hand in your circumstances.
You will see His hand on the people He has placed in your path, the opportunities He has provided for you. You might notice a common characteristic in the kinds of endeavors and activities that have brought success in your life and in those that have consistently been difficult for you. You are who you are and where you are for a reason. Having faith in that alone will bring a measure of peace.
Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”
Look back at your life. Make a list of the successes that seemed to come easy for you, in circumstances that were designed just for you. Try to identify what was common about them. This will provide insight into the things God has planned for your future. Ask God to open your eyes to the doors of opportunity available to you as well as to give you the faith to walk through them. Ask Him to give you the discipline to walk away from those opportunities that look important but are really not for you.
Finally, and most importantly, pray that God will help you to keep focused on fulfilling His plan for your life.
To learn more about Pastor and author Miles McPherson, please visit MilesMcpherson.com
Follow Miles on Facebook - FB.com/Pastor.Miles.McPherson
Follow Miles on Twitter - Twitter.com/MilesMcpherson
