What to Do When Your Job Gets Sequested: Discovering the Next Phase

So your job has been eliminated.  Or you just received notice you’ll be furloughed.  Or the business you’ve worked so hard on just isn’t going to survive.

And you’re thinking, “How am I going to make it?  I’ve got a mortgage and car payment.  The kids need braces.”

Photo by flickrohit

Panic sets in.  The cold sweats, staring at the ceiling as you lay in bed awake in the middle of the night.  Your stomach knotting up, your neck feeling like it’s going to tear the muscles.

And you fret, “What am I going to do?”

I’ve been there.

I owned a business and it was failing.  Our industry completely collapsed.  And I had some competitors who were ruthlessly and illegally attacking me.

Our kids were young and Jennifer didn’t work outside the home so our survival depended on me and I was scared.  I layed awake at night wondering what to do.  I worried about running out of money and thought, “What then?  How will I take care of my family?”

My mind was a whirlwind of confusion and stress.

Over a few months, as we tried desperately to save our business, I spent a lot of quiet moments sandwiched into our busyness trying to sense God’s directions.

As I drove to my office, worked in the yard on a Saturday afternoon, read before going to sleep, took a walk in the evening, I would ask God to guide us.

And then I would listen and try to understand what my heart was telling me.  I tried to sense where I really wanted to go which I felt was God guiding me.

Over that time his directions became clear.  I totally changed the course of my life and went on a new journey.  And that journey, though filled with its own challenges, has led into a more amazing life than I ever could have dreamed of.

So how do we discover God’s leading?  How do we hear his voice?

The Bible tells of Elijah when he was stressed and challenged.  He needed God’s directions so he went to the mountains to pray.  There in a cave he waited as lightning struck, thunder rolled, an earthquake shook but God’s voice was not in those.

Then it says, “And after all of that the Lord spoke in a quiet whisper.”  (I Kings 19:12)

Not in commotion but in quiet will we hear God’s voice.

We need to find those times when we can hear his quiet whisper.  He won’t compete with the drone of noise and distraction.  But he will speak when it’s quiet.

We need to pray and ask him for his leading.  He promises he will give it.  If we don’t ask we get to solve it all on our own.

His voice comes to me as I search my heart and try to sense the soft promptings in my soul.  Trying to understand who I am and what God made me to do.

And I respond.  I write down the ideas.  I follow through on them.  I act as though they are direct from God.  For I believe they are.

But what about when the panic is choking off the quietness?  What do you do then?  We’ll discuss that next.

When have you been faced with a crisis you needed God’s direction in?  What did you do?

If this post encouraged you I hope you will encourage someone else with it.  Blessings!