The T-P and life

I am constantly teaching that one can't do this salvation thing alone. The world need Jesus, as the song goes.
But there is a certain amount of things one must do to become more Christ-like. One of them is to simply, uh, move.

I read this morning: "Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. ² Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. ³ Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. ⁵ One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. ⁶ When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?” ⁷ “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”
 ⁸ Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” ⁹ At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked."

The man picked up his mat and walked. He didn't save himself, but once saved, he moved in response to what had happened, and to He who had done it.

Today I have a great number of friends at the local newspaper whose professional lives hang in the balance. I'm told that today there will be individual interviews of every editorial employee. I'm led to believe that all will be "fired" or some laid off or some terrible professional calamity. I don't know this for sure, but I believe it to be true.

When this occurs, many of my friends will be in their 40s to early 60s with nothing else they can do professionally, mortgages to consider and families still to be raised and none with immediate job prospects. I'm told they can apply back for their jobs, but at much reduced rates and far fewer jobs to be had. I'm assuming that to most that wouldn't be a sweet deal.

I can only pray for them, and I have, and my church has.

What next, however? What does one do in that situation?

For those who are believers at the local newspaper, the implication is found in the scripture.

1. Believe.
2. Trust.
3. Move

Believe in Him who has a plan. Trust in that plan for their lives. Move in accordance to the plan.

The job is not who they are, none of them. It is the way they have made their living. It is not who they are, though. They are talented individuals who can find other work, perhaps in the same field, perhaps in off-shoots that surely are going to rise. Conditions will never be the same in the newspaper industry, obviously, but there will be jobs. Writers write, Stephen King once wrote to me in correspondence. (Honestly, he did, on a post-card in return for sending him a short story I had written.)

Here's the thing: Today let them be covered in prayer, in a protective hedge that will not allow circumstances to be more than they can handle. Let them understand their families will still love them no matter how the interviews come out, as will their maker, creator, Savior.

There is more to life out there than jobs, even ones you love. Let go and let God, my friends.