But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. (Matthew 6:33, ESV)

In 1991 I found myself unemployed for the first time since age 14. I had in my hand seven years experience (and success) in the working world, a college degree magna cum laude, and both the pressure and passion to provide for my young wife and two toddlers.
I had left my secure and lucrative UPS job to pursue my graduate education at Oregon State University, but right before we were to move from Southern California my degree program was gutted by state-wide budget cuts. I now had no job and no clear direction, but we had a place to live (thanks to my wife’s parents) and savings in the bank. After about three weeks I discovered that the world was not going to knock at my door and offer to give me work to do, so I started pounding the bricks looking for work…nothing. I ended up working three “jobs” to keep afloat as I watched our savings account disappear and then our credit card (for the very first time) begin to show a monthly balance. My father brought us food from his pantry to help us survive.

No more going out to eat, no purchasing of new clothes, no driving places we didn’t have to go to, no movies on the weekend. One month I had to make a choice between paying for rent and food or keeping full coverage insurance on our new (and completely paid for) car. I chose to pay rent and to feed the family. Michelle was involved in a horrific wreck about a month later and we were forced to sell the remains of our vehicle as junk. I finally got a job working for a grocery store at an hourly rate of about one-third of what I earned at UPS. The store did not give me full time hours, so I painted apartments and did handyman work on the “off days” to try to keep us from falling further behind. This was to be the beginning of a very, very, very, difficult year.

I wrote the following in my quiet-time journal:

As I am looking for a new line of work and am in that “in-between” place trying to find self-identity and purpose, I have been hit square in the forehead with a shocking and revealing look at myself. The occasion for this Spirit-led insight was two paragraphs in Douglas Webster’s Christian Living in a Pagan Culture.* Webster states, “Probably no other period in history has known such an intense preoccupation with the question, ‘Who Am I?’…The new mentality [of the Christian] has a different starting point. The crucial question is not ‘Who am I’ but ‘Who art Thou?’ 

I was immediately reminded of the “seek ye first…” passage in Matthew and subsequently convicted that seeking God was the last thing I have been doing the midst of this ordeal (unemployment). My whole life focus for going on three years has been, “Who Am I?”. 

How much have I missed? What blessings have I robbed myself of because of my preoccupation with self? I pray that it is not too late to reverse the introversion and to once again seek wholeheartedly my God and let Him “add all these things” unto me.

Looking back I can say that God honored my attempt at reversing course and “added all things” in a measure I could and will never merit. How great it is to have the care of a powerful and loving God who, even in the midst of devastating circumstances, calls us to put him first—because He is worth first place.
*Webster, Douglas D. Christian Living in a Pagan Culture. (Tyndale House Publishers, ©1980). ISBN 978-0842302418, out of print.