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scavenging“Are not even servants in my father’s house eating to their fill, and here I am scavenging with pigs to feed myself? I will go back to my Father….” (Luke 15:17-18)

Three years ago, I left an employment of fifteen + years to be self employed. I figured that with the flexible nature of self employment, I’d have more time to do the things I really want to do, not just the ones I have to do.

Like most things in our lives, that phase did not go as planned/hoped and I found myself very hard pressed even sometimes incapable of putting food on the table for myself and my family. I wish that I can say like some Christian friends that they trusted God entirely and somehow God always provided – but I can’t. Sometimes I had to ask for help from friends. It was a tough two years until sometime earlier this year when I got an 8 – 5 job.

That period, though very trying , had lots of lessons I feel could not have been learnt any other way, but by experience. One of the lessons I learnt, and still learning is to look up to God for my needs, trusting Him to determine the means through which these needs would be met. The means ranged from unsolicited gifts from friends and family , short term work, and sometimes remembering sources long forgotten like some stocks.

By the time my current job came, it was a welcome relief from the anxiety of not knowing where the next meal will come from. A couple of months down the line, I am starting to be conscious of the risk of losing something very precious acquired during that phase of our lives, dependence on God.

…be careful that you do not forget the Lord, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. (Deut 6:12)

Like any other place of work, my job has its own kind of challenges, but for us believers, we must be careful not to let our jobs become our source, such that our faith is no longer entirely on God, but shifts to the job.

The question then becomes, “how do I keep my trust in God for my upkeep/provision while I have a guaranteed income?” This is a question I am still grappling with, to which I think we can find some help from the scriptures.

“…., but seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you…(Matt 6:33)”

There is a time I thought that our relationship with God helps us succeed in life in a worldly sense, health, wealth, power, etc, but I have come to appreciate that well apprehended, a relationship with God detaches us from the things of this life, leaving it to Him to add them to us as He deems necessary; “He knows that we need them,”

Beloved, let us keep our trust and hope entirely in the Lord, not in things, even the ones He has given us; for, in Christ, the Father has given us all we need for life and godliness.

“Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God.”(Ps 146:5)

Love in Him,
Patrick