One of the first things I wanted to do when I moved to London in my early twenties was to find a church to attend. One in central London had been recommended to me by a friend who had previously lived in London as well as a family member, so I decided to go along one Sunday. As soon as I entered the doors I felt like I belonged there and loved every minute of it and I couldn’t wait to go back the following week. I also got involved in a lot of the church’s other activities like helping at the Sunday school.
Having just moved to London I was also looking for a job and wondered if working at the church was a possibility. I went on the website and discovered they had a huge staff team, it is a very large church with many different ministries, so I sent them my CV. I was invited to an interview which went well but they said that they didn’t have any vacancies at the moment. They did say that they would keep my CV and let me know if anything suitable became available.
I did get a job with a marketing company and was involved in sales. The only downside was that I was paid on commission but it didn’t seem to matter as I started off doing very well. After a couple of months, things started to go badly. I was just making enough money to cover my rent and other bills and didn’t have much left over. I started to really dislike my job and every Sunday when I went to church I used to wish that I worked there.
There was a daily target each of us in the sales team had to reach and I wasn’t getting anywhere near it anymore. Each morning part of prayer for the day would be for God to help me reach the target and at the end of every day I would ask God to help me do better the following day. After a particularly bad day, on the way home from work I changed the prayer and just asked God to tell me what to do. Almost straight away I got the sense that I should contact my church to see if they had any available positions. My response was: God that is not going to work. They said they would be in touch if they had anything available, they have my CV. If they had a vacancy they would have called.
Things did not get any better and every time I asked God what I should do I felt like He was telling me to get in touch with my church. A few days before Christmas, in absolute desperation I sent them an email. The following morning, I got a call from my church saying they had just decided to open up a new position in their accounts department but were struggling to fill it. I had already had an interview so they said the job was mine if I wanted it and that I could start in the New Year. They kept saying that the email I had sent was an answer to their prayers whereas I felt their phone call was an answer to mine.
Working at my church was great. I can now see why God did not want me to continue working at the marketing firm. I was becoming very work and money focussed like my colleagues there and I was drifting away from God. Working for the church really strengthened my faith. I was working with such lovely, supportive people and sometimes our chats in the office would follow a religious theme but it is always encouraging to hear someone’s story about a prayer that has been answered or interesting when they would mention a lesser known story they had read in the Bible.
At the time when my job was going badly it seemed like God was not answering my prayer but I wasn’t praying the right prayer. When I put the situation into His hands He told me what I needed to do and when I listened to His voice both mine and my new employer’s prayers were answered.
