I have about 3 hours before my next interview. It's funny, when your interviewing for a job as a pastor it takes weeks and months. Meetings, committees, votes - even a test run at the pulpit. This should be relatively easy. I'm just trying to rest in my part in this - walk through the door.
I want to work, but at the job that God has for me. I don't think there's only one - but I think I could choose with the best of intentions and be "off."
Sidebar:
It's like an exercise I've undertaken - to live in God's abundant universe. Most people assume that the universe operates in a scarcity mode. There's only so much stuff and if you don't grab all you can while you can - you'll miss out. It's just economics right?
But I think that God has created the universe to be a place of abundance. He is the Creator and Provider - it's in His nature. The problems come when we confuse our needs with our wants and when we assume that all of God's people will respond to His prompting.
It's not a "Name it and Claim it" mentality, nor is it confusing God with Disney's "genie" character. It's just that God loves people and if we listen to Him and live as he teaches us - there's more than enough for everyone - everywhere (ie 1/10 of the world's riches people would only have to surrender 1/10 of their riches to end global poverty!)
So my exercise is to write out things I am seeking - small tangible items (to record this notion of an abundant universe) It only requires I identify what I am seeking then to watch and wait for God's provision. Some stuff comes may never come - but I've got records to prove God provides (DUH!)
Anyway - Part of that experiment included me writing down a need/want for a santoku style chef's knife. I love to cook and so I wanted one to assist that hobby. I found one on significant sale and bought it. It was smaller than I wanted but it was good quality. A few months later a pair of the knives came to me as a gift. These new knives are wonderful and one is a ten inch blade.
All this to say that I'm not entirely sure if I should have waited - if God had permitted the purchase but had always intended to meet my need with the new set. Thinking about it hurts my brain.
Just pray I get to God's will in all of it- I know I'll be safe there, and it's all I want anyway.
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3 comments:
Keith,
I'm praying for you, bro.
When winter's blooms
Sting hard the wind
With blossoms stark
Against its force
Then you can know
Deep in the soil
Is strength beyond
The pilgrim's force
Enriched, alive
In mineral belt
In hidden space
In darkness spent
Resides the wealth
Of autumn's death
That will prepare
This future spring
For in the soil
The color waits
To fill fresh leaves
With strength and blood
This now your winter
May it pass
As flowers loft
Their fragrant song
dlw
Keith,
This stuff is brilliant, you know. I know it is a dated post by now, but I want to write anyway. You do know, of course, that you are going to drive yourself nuts with the question about the knives!
If there is meaning, and we do believe there is, then the story of the knives could mean: God is not only abundant but super-abundant. His grace exceeds more than anything we could ever ask, let alone think. His imagination can encompass not only the knife you purchased on sale for yourself, but also the knives which were given to you as gift. Now you have a set of three!!!
As a matter of fact, I like this take on the 'meaning' of the parable of the knives. It suggests that the abundance of God doesn't just fall into our laps without any doing whatsoever. The abundance of God often depends on our doing something to fulfil our deepest longings, even if it only means that we get up in the morning.
Therefore, we go for job interviews. God could just have someone off the street offer you the perfect job. Wouldn't that be wonderful? I guess sometimes it seems like He does just that in a town the size of St. Stephen. Or He could get you the job at the end of an interview process.
I believe you will have a job, and if not after this interview, then after the next or the next.
I understand the terror which can accompany these interviews. The sense of being scrutinized, evaluated, judged too young, too old, too educated, not educated enough, too WASP, not WASP enough, too hairy, too bald, too male, too female, too conventional, not conventional enough, too American, too Canadian. Need I belabour this?
I'm sure you won't have the problems I have in answering questions which, in the anxiety of an interview setting, seem so obvious as to fail of suggesting, to my mind, any answer at all. You know the kind of question, "What colour is the white horse?" Very difficult. Stumps me every time.
Regarding the last job I failed to land, this is what I think. I should have walked out before we even began. The director was sitting on her long grey hair. She was wearing jeans and a sweater and Burkenstocks. I was wearing an embroidered jacket of many colours, dress pants and HEELS. It should have been obvious to me from the beginning that I was unsuitable for the job.
Do not waver, nor weaken. Keep getting up in the morning. Rage if you must, but know that you are of infinite worth.
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