CHARIS SHALOM

Several years ago God started directing me in a different direction in my occupation. Unfortunately, I ignored it. A couple of years ago I was utterly miserable in my job and looking for a way out. While searching for a new job one of the things I considered was going into the private practice of law. I knew I needed to leave my job as an in-house attorney for Tyson Foods, but my biggest problem really hadn’t changed from the time I was 8 years old. I didn’t have a clue what I wanted to be when I grew up. That was why I took the law school entrance exam at the age of 20 and decided to go to law school rather than seminary.

Following the idea of opening my own practice I bought two books on starting a new legal office. I talked to other lawyers who had begun new practices successfully. I even talked to a couple of attorneys about whether they might be interested in having someone join their practices. I ran some numbers to see what I thought might drive my business and I spent a great deal of time thinking about it.

I occasionally might say a prayer like “Lord, what can I do?” “Help me get out of this job, Lord!” “Let _____ hire me.” But even as recently as about 12 to 14 months ago I still wasn’t asking God what He wanted me to do. My prayers were much more often just prayers in front of my children as I helped put them to bed.

Interestingly, the attorney I most thought about joining practices with is likely an unbeliever. But, had he opened his door to me, I would have walked through it. Not only was I not asking God what I should do, I don’t think I would have listened had He spoken to me audibly because He had already spoken through His word and I wasn’t that concerned about it:

Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.” “Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord.

Do you trust God at His Word? If you have put yourself in a place (or are considering doing so) where your decisions must be shared with one who does not have the Holy Spirit as a guide, then you put yourself in a position where you may not be able to follow God’s voice in your life. This is true in marriage, in business, in partnerships, in clubs, in any group to which you may belong. When you are trusting a business partner more than you do God’s word, then you aren’t “trusting in the Lord with all your heart.” If you find your mind saying business is business, then you aren’t listening to God’s voice because He won’t say that to you.

And, if you approach decisions like I did (note, I am not saying major life decisions… this applies to any decision), where you crunch numbers, consult books, consult others, but don’t really seek the Lord’s guidance, at least not with more than just pithy prayers, then I think you are leaning more on your own understanding than you are trusting in the Lord. I know at least for me that I wasn’t trusting in the Lord with all my heart with my career (or life) when I first started the process of making a career change. Praise God He opened my eyes to the reality of my trust and guided me to draw near to Him. And praise God He loves prodigal children.

If you are questioning your current occupation choice and would like to talk to someone who has made some major changes in the past year after going about it in bad and good ways, please don’t hesitate to contact me. You can email me at bwriley4[at]yahoo[dot]com.