Power Made Perfect in Weakness
27 May 2020
Elizabeth is a member of the 2nd Congregation. She shares with us how the anxieties of her job hunt have led her to find refuge in God and stand firm in her identity in Christ.
“It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.”
Deuteronomy 31:8
Months before we found ourselves in the heart of the COVID-19 battle, God began a process of patiently and lovingly restoring all my broken pieces. Within the last year, I faced the death of someone I loved most dearly, wrestled with toxic family relationships, and finally confronted a years-long struggle with depression. Most recently, he has again called me to rely on his promises in the midst of difficulties with my job search.
As COVID-19 began its early spread in Wuhan at the end of 2019, I was saying goodbye to a role I had loved at a children’s rights NGO. After four years of ups, downs, and frequent travel for work, I was looking forward to a period of rest and being able to pick my next role at leisure.
God poured out undeserved blessings upon me at this time: a loving and supportive husband, friends who offered networks and referrals, a church family that prayed over me. I did my best to feel thankful and content entering into this new chapter. Still, deeply buried insecurity, envy, and fear linked to my employment status, which I never knew I had, rose up and injected doubt into my mind about God’s goodness and his promises to provide for me. These became apparent as I began to build my network and browse LinkedIn profiles. Vicious voices in my mind whispered, “How did this person get this coveted job? Do they really deserve it?” My heart secretly fed on these whispers and began a bargaining game with God. It murmured, “So if you’ve blessed so many people with the exact jobs I want and need, surely you will quickly give one to me, right? Don’t you love me as much as them?”
These thoughts caught me off-guard. I’ve never considered my career to be the foremost part of my identity; in my past, I’ve found identity in other pitfalls instead. Yet it became clear that I had been unknowingly attaching value to the jobs that I had and the things I produced.
In my job search, I idolised two companies and desired greatly to obtain my next role at one of them. As COVID-19 began spreading in Singapore, I was invited to my first interviews at my ideal companies. I felt extraordinarily happy with how quickly one of the processes seemed to be going, and imagined myself landing a dream job within three months. I pictured growing joyfully in an exciting new role, making my husband proud of my achievement, and even seeing this as a sign of stability that we could try for our first babies.
I slowly progressed through the recruitment process for my dream job. COVID-19 began to take its toll on our daily life; as we self-isolated and worried about friends and family, my interviews moved from in-person to video calls. Several other companies notified me that their recruitments would be delayed indefinitely. After the final interview for my dream job, I waited for the decision, praying with every fibre of my being that God would grant me this. So great was my anxiety that I awoke in the middle of every night, praying for this job in a half-dreaming state.
It was not to be. At the final stage, I was informed that the job would not be mine after all. The news shattered me more than I expected. I fought to hold in tears as the recruiter delivered the news to me over the phone. It was the second instance in the span of a few months that I had come so close to a dream job and missed it in the end.
My first panicked thoughts cried out to God, asking, “Why? Why again? I thought you would take care of me? Why do you bring me so close and then let me down? It’s better if you had given me no hope, than to have hope come so close before being snatched away. For months now my efforts have been in vain, and I’m simply not good enough to be hired. You have turned your face away from me.”
God’s reply to me was an overwhelming display of divine tenderness. It came as a sudden, unexplained rush of peaceful calm in that panicked moment when my mind seized with fear and self-loathing. It was the same feeling as someone waking me just before the worst part of a horrid dream. His promises in scripture sprang up like marquees in my mind and demanded my attention be turned away from myself and to him. It was through his word that God reminded me that my eternal hope and life’s fulfilment is not secured by any earthly job. He asked me to consider whether my deepest happiness would really come from these dream jobs, or whether my truest joy would be in knowing him, and being known by him. In the midst of my grief, he lifted my eyes to see him. I saw my Father who loves me endlessly and has a glorious plan for my life, who has endowed me with everlasting value because his Son’s life was crushed to rescue mine. Whether or not I have these jobs is not an indication of whether he loves me or what I’m worth. Jesus’s blood shed for me insists that I matter enough for the sovereign and mighty God of all to lay down his life for me. There is no identity more permanent or redeeming. No job or title could ever compare.
God not only comforted me, he sent an outpouring of consolation from his church and the people surrounding me. My husband reassured me of God’s love and provision. Friends and my community group, who had walked with me throughout my job-searching journey, shared similar experiences and prayed for me. Even friends outside of the church reminded me that this resting period should be enjoyable, and that I am blessed to spend more time with loved ones.
Jobs will come and go, as will money, reputation, beauty, youth, and all other aspects of our earthly existence. Only God is the eternal treasure. Without adversity in my life, I know that I would be easily persuaded to value earthly gifts far more than the Giver himself. In response to these stresses, God has drawn me into daily desiring his word and prayer to an extent that I’ve never experienced before. Every day, he calls me to come to him and reveals more of himself to me. He shows me that he’ll never give up on me, he’s invested all of himself in me and won’t let me go now. His character, holy and good, causes heartfelt praise to rupture from the depths of my soul.
Because of this, I am growing thankful to God for the battles in my life. He never fails to be there, in the thick of the worst moments, fighting for me. His strength is made perfect in my weakness. I joyfully endure pain and misfortune if my life can become a testament to his glory and power. There is nothing more I could conceive of asking him to give beyond this unfailing love, this future of hope, and this assurance of worthiness - these expensive and irreplaceable gifts bought by Jesus on the cross.
COVID-19 has turned much of the life that we knew upside down and spawned untold death and suffering. It has amplified the job insecurity that I’ve personally faced. These situations cause our worldly refuges to crash and burn. As we long for this to end, I am thankful that we can find an unshakeable refuge in him. I pray for every sufferer (that’s all of us) to trust God with our hopes and dreams, and arrive at that peace that surpasses all human understanding.
“We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”
Romans 5:3-5