Should You Move For a Job?

I once had a pastor who said, “Never move for a job.” First of all, let me say, I can't even tell you how many times I have done just that. I had moved to the city I was living in then to go to graduate school. I had moved to the previous place for the earlier graduate degree, then there, then to another city for a job, to another for another, and so on.

Moving for jobs. Isn't this just what we do? Does anyone even question whether or not this is God's way? How could anyone even question this? You've done it, I've done it. Everybody does it. It's just the way the world is nowadays. Right? But what if we look at this matter of employment from the perspective of what our work is that God is calling us to. Would this change anything?

Show Me in Your Word, Lord

So I asked the Lord to show me in His word. I asked Him to deal with me and not let me go even if I did not like what He showed me, because to me as a child of God, His will for my life is what I want and will give an account for, not whether I succeeded or failed in the eyes of the world or even in my own eyes.

It had never occurred to me to question whether I should be looking for a job in a city I decided I wanted to go live in or believed God was leading me to. Ever since I became a born again believer, I have tried to find the will of God for my life, but suddenly I began to wonder if I have ever really waited on God in this matter of employment. 

I believe God brought me to the town in which I currently reside not because of a job but to be close to my parents in their old age. Before that as a believer, I had mostly moved for school or for a job, except for my first move after becoming a Christian. The Lord moved me here then to tell my family what the

Lord had done for me and how He had had compassion on me (Mark 5:19).

Go Home to Your Friends

In the story of the healing of the demon-possessed man in Mark 5, Jesus heals the man who had been “in the tombs, crying out and cutting himself with stones (verse 5).” Jesus casts the demons out of him and sends them into the pigs, and the man, now in his right mind, asks to go with Jesus. But Jesus does not permit him.

“Go home to your friends, and tell them what great things the Lord has done for you, and how He has had compassion on you,” Jesus told him (verse 19). And, the story continues, “he departed and began to proclaim in Decapolis all that Jesus had done for him, and all marveled (verse 20).”

I am not saying that you should not move for a job or that you should not look for jobs online. I am saying that you should always ask the Lord what is His will for you, and then wait for His answer. God might be trying to refine your motivation and tune in your hearing to the bigger picture, that is, your calling and election from the Lord (II Peter 1:10). Ask Him for wisdom (James 1:5).

Seek First The Kingdom of God

As always, we should seek the Lord first and his righteousness as we are taught in Matthew 6:33. “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you,” Jesus said. “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”

Before you hastily conclude that you must “move to where the work is” give God a chance to speak to you about what He might be doing in your life right where you are. God has given me a lovely opportunity I would never have thought up on my own to work one on one with a high school student, plus I really feel planted in my church, which is the topic of a whole new study.

I had prayed that God would let me “fall into something,” and that is what he has done. It may be difficult for you to know how to turn the area of employment over to the Lord. If you're like me, you have only known figuring things out and forging ahead with your own plans. But take time to seek the Lord and let Him lead you. You'll be glad you did.

Father, I pray for my brothers and sisters who are seeking Your will in the matter of employment. Help them to make their calling and election sure, because You have called them; they have not called themselves. Help them to seek You first and Your righteousness and help them allow You to lead them and to show Yourself strong on their behalf (II Chronicles 16:9). In Jesus' Name and for His glory, Amen.