'Tis God the Spirit leads
In paths before unknown;
The work to be performed is ours,
The strength is all His own.

Supported by His grace,
We still pursue our way;
Assured that we shall
reach the prize,
Secure in endless day.

God works in us to will,
He works in us to do;
His is the power by which we act,
His be the glory too.

—Christian Science Hymnal, No. 354

For most of us, finding a new job doesn't make it to the list of the "Top Ten Things I Love Doing." An aversion to job seeking, combined with the current economic climate as reported in a recent Christian Science Monitor article, could make the project fairly daunting (see Ron Scherer, "The Job Market's Big Slump," June 9).

But no matter what it looks like, we are not without help.

As a newlywed, I arrived in New York City to begin a career in the fashion industry. The stars in my eyes were quickly dimmed by the frustration of being pronounced either overqualified or not experienced enough—that is, if a position was even available. During this time, I took a temporary job as an office assistant and switchboard operator for a slick Madison Avenue advertising company.

Just days before I was going to quit so I could start my "real job," they fired me. Instead of being glad about it, because the job didn't suit me and my performance wasn't my best, I was devastated. This taste of shame and rejection gave me a feeling for what it might be like to be fired from a job one really liked. In fact, a friend of mine did lose a job after a wonderful career and discovered that starting over after a more than 20-year run with a company was disorienting and challenging. The temptation to feel too-early-put-to-pasture and undervalued was great.

Those aren't the only reasons employment is a sensitive issue. Another is that we may closely associate what we do for work with our identity. Losing a job, or failing in it, can seem very personal. We may believe that we're flawed, and even unnecessary. Still another reason is fear—fear of not finding what we want, fear of failure, fear of letting down ourselves, or those who depend on us to pay the bills, put food on the table, or gas in the car. Our very survival may feel at stake.

These and other issues linked to this topic can be resolved by understanding that employment, like every other part of our experience, has a spiritual dimension. And it is within this spiritual dimension that we find lasting answers. Rather than just getting a job to survive, or one that will heighten our careers, understanding the spiritual concept of employment can open us up to a deeper understanding of God, and of our identity and purpose. These are truly the underlying issues.

To employ is to occupy, or make useful. To be useful, even valuable, is a very natural expectation, even a right. Our intuitive spiritual sense knows—however faintly—that a purposeful God has made us to fulfill a specific and unique aspect of His grand design. So where we might see a mortal looking for work, the picture according to spiritual reality is quite different. To get at the spiritual view, we may have to reconsider some major assumptions.

THIS MAY NOT BE ABOUT A JOB

When we're confronted with any challenge, it's tempting to focus, or even dwell on it, mentally. We make progress more immediately, however, if we can resist that impulse, and turn from whatever the problem appears to be, to the source of the solution—and that is always God. To target the need specifically, it may be helpful to consider what we're being asked to believe about the situation or ourselves.

One of the assertions might be that there are economic laws at work over which we have no control. Or perhaps we feel we don't have the right qualifications, that we're overeducated or undereducated, that our personality isn't right, or even that our appearance is objectionable. It might occur to us that we're too young or too old.

These arguments should be dispensed with quickly by developing a deeper understanding of God's laws—what they are and do, how they operate and relate to us. What we think about our lives consists of concepts that make up what we see and experience. So, if our view of ourselves is that of a mortal without a job, lacking some necessary aspect, then that is what we'll tend to see, until we drop that view. The need is to look more deeply into our being and see it as spiritual. Our job then, becomes to identify who we actually are. What is the true view? Through proper, spiritual identification, we can drop false concepts for spiritual ones.

SPIRITUAL IDENTITY DEFINES AND EMPLOYS

God is our Father-Mother, and we could say, our benevolent Employer. We're made by God to glorify the divine purpose of perpetual good. Each of us, as God's child, has a unique and individual purpose, which is essential to the completeness of God's universe. As Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, explains, "Man is the expression of God's being" (p. 470). Therefore, no one in His creation is redundant, useless, or purposeless. In fact, to be unemployed is a spiritual impossibility.

God made us in His image—to be like Him. As creation is described in the first chapter of Genesis, it's complete, perfect, and wholly good. It is not material, but entirely spiritual. Man (in the generic sense, applying to both men and women) is actually not mortal—not what we see with the material senses. Man is spiritual and complete, and includes every right idea—manifested as the truths we glimpse through spiritual sense. Unlimited utility is one of the right ideas man includes. As God's spiritual creation, we are full of purpose. So the fact is, we don't lack a thing. Everything we'll ever need is included in us. Our spiritual identity, and all its fullness, is right where we are, ready to be claimed.

Jacob discovered this at Peniel (see Gen. 32:24–30). The night before he was to meet with his estranged brother, he struggled with what the Bible calls an angel—a messenger from God. Jacob came to that place as a brother, a son, a husband and father, a successful man.

Commenting on the story in Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy wrote: "Jacob was alone, wrestling with error,—struggling with a mortal sense of life, substance, and intelligence as existent in matter .... But the patriarch, perceiving his error and his need of help, did not loosen his hold upon this glorious light until his nature was transformed" (p. 308). And a few pages later she wrote, "The real man being linked by Science to his Maker, mortals need only turn from sin and lose sight of mortal selfhood to find Christ, the real man and his relation to God, and to recognize the divine sonship" (p. 316). When Jacob realized his spiritual nature, he was renamed Israel, "a prince with God." As he put off his old identity—a blend of successes and failures—and put on the new, spiritual identity, he immediately reaped the blessing of this transformation. The first benefit was healing of the longtime rift with his brother, Esau, as they met not in war but in an embrace.

That kind of transformation is not only for Bible characters. The friend I mentioned previously who lost his longloved job after over 20 years had a similar experience. Through searching, self-examination, and prayer, he realized how much he'd leaned on his career to identify himself. He needed to give this up in order to see his real and only identity as simply God's child, without a particular personality made up of likes and dislikes, successes and mistakes. He spent months in prayer, revising who he thought he was, for who he would always be according to God. As this work approached completion, he was offered a job that used his talents and developed new ones. The offer was not the result of the many résumés he'd sent out and contacts he'd made; it came all on its own, in a natural but unexpected way.

YOUR SPIRITUAL RÉSUMÉ

With a greater understanding of your spiritual selfhood and divine rights, you'll be ready not only to seek, but to find employment. It is not "out there," separate from you, but right where you are, included in your completeness. It's quickly discovered as we drop the mortal descriptions of ourselves, and others, for the spiritually full, satisfied beings that we are. The God who is Love withholds nothing. God is Giver, divine Providence, and we therefore express right activity, goodness, and wholeness.

Science and Health states, "Let us accept Science, relinquish alltheories based on sense-testimony, give up imperfect models and illusive ideals; and so let us have one God, one Mind, and that one perfect, producing His own models of excellence" (p. 249). Accepting Science, we accept that God is good and good is All. We accept that lack or discord of any kind is removed by spiritual truth. We accept that proving these facts about God and man is our privilege and joy. When we relinquish whatever is not true according to Science, we give up only theories, not realities. We give up that which we would never want—imperfect models and illusions. That leaves us faithful and obedient to the one, good God, with all that is excellent and productive.

God knows you; He knows your worth and essential purpose, which cannot be separated from His. Daily, God is supplying clarity, energy, hope, vitality, and joy. He is employing these attributes, and because you are forever at one with Him, these and countless other Godlike qualities are available for you to utilize. We could even say, to employ.

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