CHAPTER EIGHT

FINAL THOUGHTS

Well we have come to my favorite chapter in every book, the last one. We have shared many biblical truths which have pointed out the fact that God is really in control of our situation. I wish to end this book with some personal observations which I have learned while I endured my time of unemployment.

 

REALIZE IT WILL END

You will not be unemployed for the rest of your life. God is doing something in your life right now in which you need to learn something you would have been unable to learn if you were employed. God has a beginning for everything and an end to everything here on earth. It may seem like a dark time but when the purpose is accomplished, you will look back and praise God for His personal involvement in your life. When I wrote the original manuscript for this book, I was unemployed for a total of 27 months. I have been through three long periods of unemployment in my life.

 

YOU MAY HAVE TO START OVER

There may be a possibility you will have to start over with a lower salary. When I was out of work a few years back, I had to take a job with a salary of a job I had 4 years prior to my present position. If you were a supervisor, you may not be able to procure a supervisory position again. God may choose to place us back where we were years ago, but keep in mind that He has a reason for it.

 

GOD IS NOT YOUR ENEMY

This goes back to satanic suggestion. Keep in mind that this temporal life is not the real life you and I will experience. This is only a training ground for eternity. God has done so much for us and we must never think of Him as an enemy. In Romans 8:37 God calls us overwhelming conquerors even though we do not feel like we have conquered anything. The real proof of this will be in the New Heaven and the New earth. While we are here we must realize that God is not against us, but he is for us as Romans 8:31 states, "What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? If God was your enemy, do you think He would have allowed His son to experience all the humiliation and suffering of the cross? Think about it. Don't lose sight of Calvary because you lost your job.

 

SAVOR WHAT THE LORD IS TEACHING YOU

You are in a situation of learning right now and it is necessary for you to remember what you are learning. As I am experiencing unemployment, I have placed things God has taught me on paper. God teaches us that we may teach others. I still have my notes from 1986 when I was out for eleven months. Keep a written record of the little things which will happen to you. It is these things you will share with others as I have and believe me when you meet a Christian who has trouble understanding why things like this happen to him or her, you will be like a special messenger of comfort from Heaven. Enduring unemployment in a money crazed society surfaces great lessons and ones we can draw on for the rest of our life.

 

YOU MAY HAVE TO MAKE DRASTIC CHANGES IN YOUR LIFE

If you return to work at a lower paying job, you may have to relinquish some of the previous lifestyle. You may not be able to buy a car every two years, now it may be every five. You may not be able to buy things so easily as before. A move to a smaller house or apartment, or even out of state may be in order. Whatever the situation is we are placed in we will have to adjust to it and not dwell on the luxuries of the past or else a root of bitterness may spring up and God may have to place us back in adversity until it is all out of us. Unemployment normally necessitates a change of lifestyle, sometimes small and sometimes large but move with caution.

 

USE YOUR BIBLE AS YOUR REFERENCE MANUAL

As you have plainly seen throughout this book, the Bible speaks to all the situations we will face in our life, not only while we are out of work. Start with a character study like Joseph or Moses and you will see the principles in their life paralleling your life. Once you hook onto a biblical character you will begin to feel a kinship to them and you will realize how tough they had it too. Whenever you have a situation in your life, look for the person which closely represents your situation and study them. You will see passages come alive like they never did before and take on new meanings that only one in adversity would notice. Read and Study your Bible, as it is the one book that makes sense out a senseless world.

 

GOD'S TIMING MAY NOT BE YOURS

Many times we think we know what our opportune times are and at what point God should give us a job. One thing I have learned from the Scriptures and not only pertaining to unemployment is that God is never in a hurry. Do we ever read in the Scriptures a scenario like this: Hurry up Peter we have to go, just leave that behind and we will pick it up later! John why are you talking to that person we have a schedule to make, hurry, hurry! We never read anything like this in Scripture. Jesus accomplished everything in the proper time frame without ulcers. The key to enduring adversity is found in the next and final portion of our book. Although we may think the time is right, God knows better and he will bring our situation to completion at the proper time, and when He does we will be glad we trusted Him. Now for the key I promised you.

 

THE KEY WORD IS WAIT!

Scriptures which deal with waiting:

(Job 14:14) If a man die, shall he live again? all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come.

 

(Psa 25:3) Yea, let none that wait on thee be ashamed: let them be ashamed which transgress without cause.

 

(Psa 25:5) Lead me in thy truth, and teach me: for thou art the God of my salvation; on thee do I wait all the day.

 

(Psa 25:21) Let integrity and uprightness preserve me; for I wait on thee.

 

(Psa 27:14) Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD.

 

(Psa 33:20) Our soul waiteth for the LORD: he is our help and our shield.

 

(Psa 37:7) Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for him: fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass.

 

(Psa 37:9) For evildoers shall be cut off: but those that wait upon the LORD, they shall inherit the earth.

 

(Psa 37:34) Wait on the LORD, and keep his way, and he shall exalt thee to inherit the land: when the wicked are cut off, thou shalt see it.

 

(Psa 39:7) And now, Lord, what wait I for? my hope is in thee.

 

(Psa 52:9) I will praise thee for ever, because thou hast done it: and I will wait on thy name; for it is good before thy saints.

 

(Psa 59:9) Because of his strength will I wait upon thee: for God is my defence.

 

(Psa 62:1) To the chief Musician, to Jeduthun, A Psalm of David. Truly my soul waiteth upon God: from him cometh my salvation.

 

(Psa 62:5) My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him.

 

Psa 69:3) I am weary of my crying: my throat is dried: mine eyes fail while I wait for my God.

 

(Psa 69:6) Let not them that wait on thee, O Lord GOD of hosts, be ashamed for my sake: let not those that seek thee be confounded for my sake, O God of Israel.

 

(Psa 104:27-28) These wait all upon thee; that thou mayest give them their meat in due season.

 

(Psa 123:2) Behold, as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress; so our eyes wait upon the LORD our God, until that he have mercy upon us.

 

(Psa 130:5-6) I wait for the LORD, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope. {6} My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning: I say, more than they that watch for the morning.

 

(Psa 145:15) The eyes of all wait upon thee; and thou givest them their meat in due season.

 

(Prov 20:22) Say not thou, I will recompense evil; but wait on the LORD, and he shall save thee.

 

(Prov 27:18) Whoso keepeth the fig tree shall eat the fruit thereof: so he that waiteth on his master shall be honoured.

 

(Isa 30:18) And therefore will the LORD wait, that he may be gracious unto you, and therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you: for the LORD is a God of judgment: blessed are all they that wait for him.

 

(Isa 40:29-31) He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. {30} Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: {31} But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

 

(Isa 49:23) And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers: they shall bow down to thee with their face toward the earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet; and thou shalt know that I am the LORD: for they shall not be ashamed that wait for me.

 

(Isa 64:4) For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him.

 

(Jer 14:22) Are there any among the vanities of the Gentiles that can cause rain? or can the heavens give showers? art not thou he, O LORD our God? therefore we will wait upon thee: for thou hast made all these things.

 

(Lam 3:25-26) The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. {26} It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD.

 

(Hosea 12:6) Therefore turn thou to thy God: keep mercy and judgment, and wait on thy God continually.

 

(Micah 7:7) Therefore I will look unto the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation: my God will hear me.

 

(Hab 2:3) For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.

 

(Zep 3:8) Therefore wait ye upon me, saith the LORD, until the day that I rise up to the prey: for my determination is to gather the nations, that I may assemble the kingdoms, to pour upon them mine indignation, even all my fierce anger: for all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy.

 

(Acts 1:4) And, being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard of me.

 

(Rom 8:19) For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.

 

(Rom 8:25) But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.

 

(Gal 5:5) For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith.

 

(1 Th 1:9-10) For they themselves show of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God; {10} And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.

 

(James 5:7) Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.

 

As you can see the Bible stresses waiting as a normal part of the Christian walk, it is not a waste of time to wait, it is an in investment.

 

May God guide and bless you as you seek Him during this time!

 

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