Go Where God Leads

We all know the economy is tough right now. Prices keep going up and good jobs are hard to find. This is especially discouraging for a young adult finishing school. He or she might wonder, “What’s the point, if I can’t find a job when I graduate?”

But recently I heard a discussion on the radio about a place in the United States where employers can’t find enough workers to hire! They’re offering big bonuses just to get someone to start a job. How can this be? With the U.S. unemployment rate at above six and half percent, and many people only working part time, why would any good jobs be left untaken?

The reason is location! The places with all those jobs are the states of North and South Dakota.

North Dakota has led the nation in creating new jobs for five years in a row, and neighboring states are not far behind. This is mostly because of the big increase in shale oil production. There’s a lot of money to be made—but it requires a lot of workers too. With so many people looking for jobs, hoping and praying that they can find a good one, why aren’t more of them going to the Dakotas to take up the opportunities available?

The answer is simple geography: The Dakotas are far away, from almost everywhere.

It’s cold there in winter, and the night life is not exactly party-central. People don’t want to leave behind home, family, and friends and go to a far-way, unknown place—even if prosperity seems to be waiting there for them.

God’s command to move

Here’s an important lesson: We believe in God, we ask Him to bless us, to provide for us—and we expect Him to do it right here! But, the Bible shows that God often doesn’t do it that way.

Genesis, the first book of the Bible, relates the story of God instructing Abraham to leave behind everything he knew, travel to live in a distant land, and there he would be blessed.

Later in the story, Abraham’s grandson, Jacob, had to travel off alone to take a job and build his fortune. Then, all of his sons and their families went to Egypt to avoid starvation. And, of course, a few generations later, God used Moses to lead their descendants on a long journey to the Promised Land.

Those stories show that while the greatest blessings in life are gifts from God, He still sometimes makes people go get them. You may not need to move to the Dakotas, but we all need to be ready and willing to take action in order to be blessed. That may start with studying the Bible and praying to ask Him what to do.

God doesn’t require everyone to move, but He does expect everyone to be ready and willing to follow Him anywhere.