Job Hunting: God’s Providence

I once went for a job at Garforth, near Leeds, for which several of my colleagues on the training course also applied. We had to teach a pretend lesson in the morning, and the most competent were deemed suitable for the formal interview in the afternoon. I was not one of them and returned home deflated after lunch. God of course had other plans, and I was appointed by the next school to which I applied. This brought me to east Lancashire and accounts for my present whereabouts and proximity to Salem Chapel. Never is God’s providence so keenly felt than in the success or failure of a job application. The Christian never ‘fails’ to get the job; God simply bids them wait until the one of His choice is available.

John Wesley also once hoped to obtain a teaching post:

Letter to his mother, 19th March 1727, Lincoln College:

A school in Yorkshire, forty miles from Doncaster, was proposed to me lately, of which I shall think more about when it appears I may have it or not. A good salary is annexed to it: so that in a year’s time ‘tis probable all my debts should be paid and I should have money beforehand. But what has made me wish for it most is the frightful description, as they call it, some gentlemen who know the place gave me of it yesterday. The town (Skipton in Craven) is in a little vale, so pent up between two hills that it is scarcely accessible on any side; so that you can expect little company from without, and within there is none at all. I should therefore be entirely at liberty to converse with company of my own choosing, whom for that reason I would bring with me, and company equally agreeable whenever I fixed could not put me to less expense. 

Quoted in A.M. Gibbon: The Ancient and Free Grammar School of Skipton in Craven, London, 1947.

Notice his then unregenerate heart is chiefly interested in the salary and opportunity to clear his debts rather than the service of God or the education of the young. In fact, the Church Wardens appointed their own choice within the specified month, so Lincoln College was not entitled to award the post to one of its own. The young Wesley may have been disappointed, but God had far, far bigger things in mind for him. Had he become the headmaster, he would doubtless have been successful and may have gained some fame and respect in the area. But would he have ever been converted and would England have experienced the biggest religious revival since the Reformation? Perhaps, perhaps not.

If you don’t get that job you applied for, thank Him. He has something better in mind.