I just stepped outside into a beautiful, crisp late winter morning in the South. The birds are singing a joyful chorus as a red hued ribbon on the eastern horizon foretells a bright sunrise in the next half hour or so. A few wisps of fog in the low spots provides a reminder of the rain yesterday. I am able to linger a few minutes to soak it in and praise our heavenly Father for His great goodness towards us. As I do so I realize again what a blessing it is that we have a good, good Father. A loving Father who has a plan for us that He will bring to fruition, even if the path to blessing means we won’t always get what’s fair.
A little over 14 months ago I was fired from my leadership role in a fairly large manufacturing plant. It wasn’t fair. It took several days before the anger dissipated. I knew the right thing to do – to trust the Lord, pray for those who spitefully use you, look to the future and not back, etc. In fact I had encouraged others who had gone through similar situations with these words, but I hadn’t personally experienced anything quite this intense before. The issue was not in believing that God was eventually going to bring good out of the situation. The problem was the unbidden thoughts of all the time, effort and sacrifice I had put in to build a successfully performing team only to have it taken away without even an opportunity to state my case. Before I knew it in the courtroom of my mind I had witnesses lined up, my case presented, and a clear verdict against the ones who had fired me because – IT WASN’T FAIR!
The funny thing is, every time that my mind would go through one of those cycles, the Holy Spirit would whisper to me. “Are you going to trust Me?” Fourteen months later, I am soooo thankful the Lord stuck with me and continued to encourage me to trust Him. Because I did. And each time I did it was a little longer before I would have another pity-party and the pity-party would be a little less intense and a little shorter. Within a month or two it had become a habit that as soon as a thought along those lines would come, I would squash it with. “I trust you, Lord!” and I would often have a scripture come to mind to go with it. “I thank you Lord that you are for me and not against me.” “I thank you Lord that the plans you have for me are to prosper me and not to harm me.” “Thank you Lord that you are my God who takes hold of my right hand and says to me, ‘Do not fear: I will help you”.
Let me add parenthetically, that I know, I was buoyed by the prayers of God’s people. It is a wonderful mystery to me that I fully recognize to be true, God allows us to partner with Him through prayer to change things. There were a lot of people praying for me. Several of the folks that I had worked with kept in touch and let me know they were praying. My family is filled with believers and they upheld me in prayer. And God, in His marvelous, omniscient timing, had prompted me to start the process to getting much more involved in the Care Ministry at our church just before all this happened. So that when I was fired, I was immersed in a group of loving, caring, praying people.
Today, I can honestly say, I am in such a better place. First and foremost, my walk with the Lord and the time with my wife is so much better. The mountain of stress that I lived under (and that was killing me – literally. See my blog about my heart issues.) was removed. While I assumed in that transition time that I would see a little bit of a drop in my income before I started making a comparable salary, I was mistaken. I didn’t come close to making a similar income. But even so the stress never returned. Amazingly, the stress of living on substantially less has never arisen. It is another mystery, because we eliminated some expenses, but it really doesn’t add up to our lost income, but we still are having all our needs met. God has consistently provided exactly what was needed.
Another very interesting point occurred about 3 months in. The day I was fired, I called a friend who owns a consulting business doing what I do. I had a sense I was supposed to work for his company. And over time, we have developed a great working relationship and I am now getting fairly regular work consulting. But the process of bringing me on took several months. I went most of last year without paying work. So I went through the process to get unemployment.
One thing I learned, is if anyone thinks it is easy to get unemployment, think again. The process is pretty rigorous and includes a number of checks along the way to prevent milking the system. I can see how dishonest people could still cheat, but it isn’t a cakewalk. I had spent several hours getting set up and then, as I was ready to apply, the Lord whispered to me again, “Are you going to trust Me?” I have learned that when the Holy Spirit gives us a check in our spirit about something, we should listen. I had been pursuing the unemployment compensation because it was my right. As several friends pointed out, it wasn’t really just a government handout, but something that I had been paying into for years so it was appropriate for me to get it. But I realized the Lord was telling me “No” to getting the unemployment. So I walked away from it and never drew unemployment. It was just after that that I got my first week of consulting work. Over the next few months I got about a week a month. The last quarter I got 6 weeks of work. As of this writing, I am looking at about 3 – 4 weeks per month for the next few months.
Now I have spent a lot of time talking about the financial side. I was raised in a time and environment that emphasized my primary role was as provider to my family. While there are a number of areas where losing your job hits you, the biggest for many will be the perceived failure as provider. Losing my job took me to a place where the Lord was able to show me that I was not the ultimate provider for my family. I have said this was true in the past and, in individual situations where circumstances dictated that I could not control of the outcome, I had submitted to God’s role as provider. In this year long trial though, we have experienced His consistent supply of all our needs and even a majority of our wants. It has been liberating in a way I had never really anticipated.
My life, and that of my wife and family, has been amazingly impacted for the good through my getting fired. While it may not have been fair, it was definitely for the best. It has strengthened my faith in ways that I could not imagine. God, who I already knew and acknowledged as my Lord and Provider, has been able to demonstrate the absolute reality of His love and provision in tangible, practical ways for months now. And He has clarified for me what our role is as His children. We are to trust and obey. Even if it means we don’t always get our way. Even if it isn’t always fair. When we put our whole faith and trust in the Lord, we will sometimes miss out on what’s fair to get what’s best. And that my friend, is a pretty good deal.
Be blessed today and be a blessing to the people God puts in your life today.
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