The loss of our jobs opens our eyes again to the fact that God is that something, that someone better. Or at least we have the chance to believe that’s true, or refuse to believe that’s true and become bitter. If our default is to see God’s role as merely to give us something better than we have lost, then we have miss the point of God! Here’s the test. What if, in losing our jobs, God has pushed us back onto relying on him more? What if, instead of getting what we think we want we have our wants exposed and changed?

Something Better?

I was lamenting on the phone with a friend yesterday about the loss of both of our jobs this year.

The frustration was real, especially for him as he’s subsequently missed out on a couple of roles that would have suited him well. And here we are coming up to Christmas and he still has no job after four or five months. I’ve got a lot more social capital than he, so things seem to be slotting together well for me. Not so for him

So we chatted for a while, processing the last few months. And we kinda made this comment as we chatted, talking through the pressure and uncertainty that losing your job puts you through.

“Well if God has taken that away then he has something better for us, that’s what we have to believe.”

And on the surface, or for an instant, we affirmed that for each other. But then something kicked in – for both of us. And I like to think it was the gospel that kicked in! For we realised, pretty much at the same time as we said it, that that is not strictly true. Or at least it may not be strictly true.

The truth could be far more complex than that. Both of us liked our jobs and believed we were good at them, and they satisfied a certain number of criteria in our lives. But that does not mean that God has some better job for us in the future than those jobs were for us in the past. It doesn’t mean that’s there a more rewarding role with more financial and experiential rewards than what we just left behind.

That simply isn’t the case. It could be that for both of us we’ve peaked – at least in terms of work. I hope not, but it could be. Those roles could be the best ones we have ever had and will ever have going forward. That’s just the case. To say that God has something better for us – workwise at least – is not something we can say with any deep assertion.

And that’s why our conversation then took a different turn. A different, deeper and richer turn. I said to my friend in response to our initial assertion:

“Actually that’s not quite right. What we need to take from this is this: not that God HAS something better for us, but that God IS that something better.”

And as I said it, I think we both got it. I think we kinda knew it, but hadn’t articulated it.

You see, that’s the central point of what it means to be a Christian. And that’s the central point of the Christmas season. Not that God gives us stuff. Not that God gives us the job we want. Not that God gives us a better job than the one we had before. But that God gives us God! God is the something better. And if we just allow him to show us that, even in the tough times, it will make all of the difference.

Let’s define it even more sharply. God is not something better, he is SOMEONE better. God doesn’t desire to simply give us created stuff, he desires to share himself – the Creator – with us.

Perhaps the loss of our jobs is an opportunity for God to show us that he is that something better that we are craving. And to lose sight of that in a time such as this is to lose a great opportunity to grow into what God wants us to be. In fact the loss of anything is such an opportunity, hard though that may be to hear.

And that’s a whole different ball game. I came away from our conversation in a better frame of mind. Our chat steered us away from the roles we had lost, and the imagined roles we wish we could have, or possibly might have if everything lands perfectly,.

The conversation was steered onto what it might be that God is doing in our lives as we go through this season, ahd how he is showing us, in what seems a painful way, how he himself is the better thing that we seek.

Our Idolatrous Hearts

And here’s the guts of that: God is shaping and refining us away from a constant, almost magnetic, pull towards the good gifts that he gives us and towards the constant, majestic pull of God towards himself. For anything less will ultimately end up as idolatry.

That’s the heart of idolatry after all, as Romans 1 tells us – craving and worshipping the things that the Giver gives us rather than the Giver himself.

The loss of our jobs opens our eyes again to the fact that God is that something, that someone better. Or at least we have the chance to believe that’s true, or refuse to believe that’s true and become bitter. If our default is to see God’s role as merely to give us something better than we have lost, then we have miss the point of God!

Here’s the test. What if, in losing our jobs, God has pushed us back onto relying on him more? What if, instead of getting what we think we want we have our wants exposed and changed? What if, instead of the temptation to seek our identity in a work role, God removes that from us in order to deepen our identity in him? Is God allowed to do that?

And what if this situation opened our eyes to the fact that we may have been cruising a little bit, relying on the things of this age – good and proper though they are – and not leaning more steadfastly on him? Is God allowed to do that?

What if, ironically, our ministry roles were taken away from us to ensure that we found our worth in the God we declare, not the job that declares his worth?

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