The Ultimate Job

Mark 11:24 (NIV)
Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.


It was the day before Thanksgiving.  We, my coworkers and I, were given our pink slips.  Yes, we were laid off.  The day before Thanksgiving.
I needed a job.  That much was for certain.  I spent a month looking, searching, praying.  I dressed up in interview clothes every day and walked around with my resume, just in case I might see a job opportunity.  The town I live in is a smaller town, so it's possible to find a job opportunity in line at the grocery store.
One thing I learned was that you don't go to the unemployment office in interview clothing because heaven forbid that you should actually want to work that day if you were hired.  Instead you ought to roll around in dirt and not comb your hair, because if you don't, people in line at the unemployment office look like they want to kill you because you (a rich person because you are dressed rich when in actuality you are wearing your best clothing because you are becoming increasingly poorer each day and need a job) dare stand in line to take a job that they could get.  I have never been looked at like that in my life.  The way someone gives a sideways glance to a person who is acting inappropriately.  Unlike some people, I was actually actively (key word: actively) searching for a job.
I prayed for a job that would provide a good income, have benefits, be close to my home at the time, where I would be able to use my knowledge of the medical field, where I'd have good coworkers, and where I'd have a good supervisor.  I received two job interviews at two tax places, needing temporary workers for the tax season.  The first tax place wanted to hire me.  I was scared to say no because there wasn't much out there.  But I felt like the pay I was offered was too low to live on.  Then I got called for the second job interview.  And then one of my other applications, at a clinic, came through.  They wanted me to interview on the same day.  The clinic interview came first.  They wanted to hire me on the spot for a job that I did not apply for.  After much inner debate, I decided to take the job and let the other place know I was not interested in the interview.
Over the next four and a half years, the job proved to be exactly what I'd ordered and more.  Not only has everything been better than I asked for, but the job unexpectedly provided for me in a very tough place, and I am still seeing the provision from it.  Last year I went through a very rough time in life, one I might be able to blog about twenty or thirty years from now.  We'll see.  I had to make many adjustments in living and I went hungry sometimes (although miraculously food turned up at convenient times... more on that later), and I cried a lot because I didn't have enough money to pay for some medical things I needed (and other hard things that were going on in life).  The job that I prayed for, thinking only in the short term, ended up carrying me through the hard times and once I adjusted my living, it allowed me to save up for the next adventure in life.  It also helped provide for medical expenses through a good insurance program so that actually a lot of my crying about medical expenses proved to be fruitless because most of them were already provided for.  I wish I could go into detail, but that is for another time.
I wish I could have found a better scripture for this post, because I do believe that some people treat God like a vending machine.  It's not like that.  Insert prayer, receive blessing.  In this case, I did believe that God would provide me with what I asked for, only he not only provided for my immediate needs, he also provided ahead of time for things in the future.  He went above and beyond what I asked for.  It is so awesome to be in relationship with a God like that!  When you are in relationship with him, then you can do Mark 11:24.  That way you are asking things within God's will, coming before God with clean hands and living a life pleasing to him so that He can't help but bless you.  Anyway, God is awesome.