Article June 16, 2003 Issue

Employment possibilities

By Jim Baker

In turbulent economic times such as these, many careers are disrupted with devastating impact. Those who lose jobs are confronted with feelings of anger, bitterness, and resentment. Nagging negative thoughts present themselves: "The economy is bad and jobs are hard to find." "I'm getting older and less employable." "Advances in technology have left me behind." "My friends have been out of work for months or years." "My financial obligations will quickly exhaust my financial reserves."

These demoralizing suggestions tend to paralyze the very constructive thinking and acting that are so urgently required. The efforts to understand their "victimization" mire the newly unemployed in depression, despair, and inactivity at the very time when right thinking is most needed. Anxiety and fear about the future drive from view any sense of God's tender, loving care.

Yet I have found that what is most needed is not to understand the human situation, but to understand one's relationship to God. In referring to Soul as a synonym for God, Mary Baker Eddy wrote in Science and Health, "Soul has infinite resources with which to bless mankind, and happiness would be more readily attained and would be more secure in our keeping, if sought in Soul" (p. 60). But worldly thinking seeks security in materiality rather than in Soul. Worldly thinking robs us of our abundant inheritance as children of God by making us feel we are unworthy, illegitimate heirs.