How can I stay encouraged when finding a good job seems impossible?

One may not be so greedy as to want to selfishly amass great riches, and yet may be a victim of worry and anxiety. This too is in reality opposition to the grace of God, yet even a believer often succumbs to it, for it is His disciples to whom the Lord spoke in verse 22. Parents must be concerned as to the needs of their family, and sometimes the future seems extremely bleak due to health problems, lack of employment, money shortage, lack of education etc., but the Lord encourages implicit faith rather than anxious worry. He cannot fail, though needs press heavily. The question is simply, Is the grace of God sufficient for the child of God? The Lord can be depended on to supply His saints with every necessity of life. For the life is more than the things that we think necessary to support it, and God is concerned for every aspect of life. Certainly we should work to support ourselves and our families (2 Thes.3:10), but worrying is not working.

Should not we as saints of God more definitely commit our ways to Him? The husband comes home. He has lost his employment. The situation is dark. Husband and wife are struck dumb. Happy if they put their affairs in God’s hands. It may be a few years go by. We call on the couple. They live in a different part of the country. They say, “What we thought was a crushing blow that tempted us to think that God was harsh, has turned out to our material, and spiritual blessing. We can see God’s hand in it all now in a wonderful way.”

I have no doubt the Lord is leading you in the right way; He always does, He may stop us if we go our own, but He makes all things work together for good to them that love Him. I have no doubt your lying aside a while for your family will be a blessing, and mature you in your own soul for work. Do not lose sight of work, however. Wait patiently till God opens the way, but keep it in view. It is all right you should support your family. It is God's way, too, to set people aside after their first start, that self-confidence may die down. Thus Moses was forty years. On his first start he had to run away. Paul was three years also, after his first testimony, before he entered on his work as sent. Not that God did not approve the first earnest testimony. In both cases He did, but we see how Moses, at any rate, carried much of the flesh with him into it, and then afterwards was afraid to go on; but, after all, when he was before Pharaoh there was neither: he stood in God's name and power. We must get to know ourselves and that we have no strength; for in the end of Romans 7 is learning that we have no strength. So in 2 Corinthians 12, Paul has to learn his own weakness that the power of Christ may rest upon him: and this conscious weakness only casts itself on the Lord. When Paul went to Corinth it was thus it began, "I was with you in weakness and fear and in much trembling"; but the Lord had a great people there. Thus we must learn, and then leaning on the Lord we can with more maturity, and more experimentally, deal with souls. …

The Psalmist records his sense of God's perfect accountancy. "Thou tellest (lit. countest) my wanderings." (Hebrew word, "Nod."). So the man of God may not differ in appearance from those around him. He has to work for his living. In times of industrial stress such as the present period, he may come to be out of work, and may have to move to another sphere of action. In that new set of conditions, he may still remain unemployed and he may be tempted to view the conditions as constituting an enigma. He may feel akin with the common expression at the close of the Old Testament times, "It is vain to serve God!"(Mal. 3:14). Does God really care for His people? That there were many similar mysteries indicated in the Old Testament is evident, in spite of the fact that then the people of God had only an earthly calling, and hence all their blessings were earth-centred.

There you get a class, I believe very much larger than the company that the rich man was in. In this world there are a great many more oppressed by poverty, than riches. How am I going to make ends meet? is often in the heart if not expressed by the lip. Care, like a canker, eats out the very life of many a dear child of God. If such be your present condition, the Lord's words, "Take no thought," and "Your Father knows," may well comfort your heart. The Lord really says here, Do not think of tomorrow.

In this connection there is a charming word in the end of the sixth chapter of Matthew. Did you ever notice it? "Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof" (Matt. 6:34). How oftentimes, beloved friends, have we troubled and worried ourselves about what was going to be on the morrow, and, when it came, we found how beautifully the Lord stepped in. We found that His care, and His love, had anticipated all our need, and more than met it. "Your Father knows that ye have need of these things." Oh, they are lovely words. To me, these three words, "Your Father knows," are exquisite. Ah, beloved, to get them deeply engraved in the soul! To remember that your Father knows, is to put the heart at peace. Further, we might never have to face tomorrow, because, before tomorrow comes, the Lord may have come, and we may have gone home to our Father's house on high.

He next gives the way of deliverance from anxiety. He says in verse 29, "Seek not ye what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, neither be ye of doubtful mind. For all these things do the nations of the world seek after; and your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things." If we did but live in the sense of that! "I am in want," you say; well, the Father knoweth. There is not a single thing that can affect one of His people that does not affect the heart of God. A sentence which I read many years ago, and which has never passed from me is this: "Whatever might be a care to you produces a care for you in the heart of God." And so it does; do we not read in the Epistle of Peter, "Casting all your care upon Him, for He careth for you"? "Your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things." He watches over us even to the smallest and most minute things that might trouble us. Will He forsake us? No, beloved! If you remember the Apostle Paul brings it out in the Epistle to the Hebrews; he says, "Be content with such things as are present, for He has said I will never leave you nor forsake you," so that, as the apostle goes on to say, "We may boldly say the Lord is my helper, and I shall not fear what man will do unto me." So the Lord casts us upon the Father's knowledge and the Father's heart. Then, beloved, He gives the reason why it is we don't enter into the comfort of this: it comes out in the next verse, "But rather seek ye the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you" (v. 31). Now let me point out one beautiful thing. In verse 30 He says, "All these things" (eating and drinking and clothing) "do the nations of the world seek after: and your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things"; then, "But rather seek ye the kingdom of God, and all these things" (about which He has been speaking) "shall be added unto you." But there is a condition annexed, and I will just call attention to it for one moment. It is all summed up in two lines of an old hymn -

In the previous article we considered the circumstances of those to whom Peter wrote and the anxious care which would naturally arise from those circumstances. They were directed to cast all their care upon God, who cared for them. In Matthew 6 the things that may give rise to this anxious care are much more general. They are not wants that arise only in exceptional circumstances, but everyday needs that all of us have. In particular the Lord speaks of food and drink for the sustaining of our lives, and clothing for our bodies. Perhaps most of the readers of this magazine, like the writer, have become accustomed to an abundance of these things. Some may be able to remember times when there was a shortage and the anxiety that was then felt. Many believers in the world today are in straightened circumstances and their concern about their needs, and those of their families, is understandable. Nevertheless three times in this passage the Lord instructs his hearers not to be careful, or anxious, about these matters1. It is in connection with them that He brings home the care of the Father and the provision made by Him.

It is an arresting word, "take no thought for your life," whether in regard to daily food or necessary clothing. Though necessary, these things must not be allowed to occupy time and thought as though they were vital matters. We have far more than this to live for. The birds are a pointed object lesson for us. They make no preparations for obtaining meals, yet God the Father has provided this necessity for them in such a way that they simply obtain their food as they need it. True it is that we could not exist in the same way, but faith may nevertheless count upon God to provide through giving employment, health, strength, or whatever is required to take care of these things. Faith in a living God is the vital matter here, faith that does not degenerate into anxiety. Man, who is capable of a conscious knowledge of, and communion with, his Creator, is of much more value to God than the birds.

"But," it may be said, "in these days of competition we must bend all our energies to the making of money, else we shall not long retain such things as we have, but shall sink into poverty." The answer to this thought is however immediately anticipated in these verses. We have the definite promise of His unfailing presence and support; consequently we may boldly count upon the Lord for all our needs, and have no fear of man.

The only counsel we can offer you is to wait on the Lord and ask Him to guide you. He has said, “I will guide thee with Mine eye,” and “He cannot deny Himself.” It may be He would have you plod on patiently with your present occupation. We are in a much safer position, morally, when our business is the burden on the back and not the idol of the heart.