Printed from: https://www.cmf.org.uk/doctors/devotion/?id=devotion&day=29&month=6
But when God was pleased to reveal his Son to me... I did not confer with flesh and blood,... but I went away into Arabia. Galatians 1:15-17
Do I really mean that God has allowed me to be unemployed with no reason? There is much to be learned from the experience, not least in sharing the feelings of so many in Britain today. But I think there is more -- Jesus and his disciples, in the middle of purposeful and constant activity, suddenly withdrew (Mk 6:32). They had been busy travelling and teaching, caught up with their work so much that they could not even snatch a bite. I remember on occasions running straight from theatre to outpatients because the list had over-run. Jesus stepped into this busyness, and took his apostles out of it for a while -- to be alone together. Taking stock of my life is easier when i am isolated from my usual employment. Lesson three: unemployment can be a chance to reconsider and redirect my efforts. Indeed its very formlessness is a help as I am not constrained by existing plans.
Before, every day was brimful of details which filled my attention. The short gaps that are evenings and weekends off were filled with domestic and social activity, the ordinary recreation of life. Now, Jesus takes me out of that sort of living: I need to be alone with him, free from responsibility and bustle, to make sense of the whole. Work too easily comes to mean too much. It gives me value in society, it gives me security and meaning in my life. However, these are all being detached from their real source, which is God. If I can have all these from him, I am freed from my dependence on activity for its own sake. I no longer need to work, though I certainly want to. Now, after several months I begin to put employment back into its right place.
'You have six days in which to do your work, but the seventh day is a day of rest dedicated to me. On that day no one is to work -- neither you, your children, your slaves, your animals, nor the foreigners who live in your country. In six days I, the Lord made the earth, the sky, the sea, and everything in them, but on the seventh day I rested' (Ex 20:9-11 GNB).
The principle of the day without work -- to rest and remember what life is really about -- applies to unemployment too.
O Lord, who created us to be your fellow workers,
teach me that employed or unemployed by society
I still have work to do with and for you.
Grant that I may never be ashamed of enforced unemployment,
but may use it to find fulfilment in fellowship with you,
and direct me and others like me into new avenues of service
that you have planned for us.
Further reading: 1 Ki 19:3-18.
PIMA
