Loving my New Job...Testimony Continues

The last time we spoke about my new job, it was just that. I shared my amazing new job testimony. Those of you that have seen that video will know that I had the task of choosing between 2 companies and in the end, I choose the company that I felt God was leading me towards. Now, I’m not sure if I mentioned this in this video, but the job I turned down was more prestigious than the job I accepted. The company, the location and what I would have been doing would have been an impressive addition to my CV, but we must remember that the ways of God are not the ways of man. So, I’d like to start this update by saying once again obedience to God pays off.

Those of you that have been following my journey over the last year will know that I didn’t just quit my last job on a whim. Though it might have appeared that way to many people, I quit my job because I had come to a realisation that I wasn’t living life as God intended and my time was done in that organisation. The reason I quit my job also fuelled my new job search, I was now determined that I wouldn’t enter back into the bondage I had been freed from (Galatians 5:1). I didn’t just want a new job, I wanted a new job that would allow me to live my whole life as God intended. I didn’t know what that looked like, but I knew that it wasn't working 12 – 14 hour days, being tired all the time, feeling stressed, alone, overwhelmed, and in and out of the doctor’s office because of work-related stress. I wanted to stop striving and to live my life fully in the rest that He promises. And this is where the testimony of my new job continues.

I am now in a place where I work 9am - 6pm. Technically I have a flexible start time (which I love!), but my point is that my working hours are 8 hours with a lunch break. What’s even more amazing is that they go out of their way to enforce that. They truly do not want people working long hours in the office. Please note that they said the exact same thing in my last job, but somehow they kept throwing more work at me with even shorter deadlines. So imagine my surprise when my new manager notices that I had been staying late and then proceeded to take work from me, so I didn’t feel under pressure. For those of you that have been working in these work-life balance havens, you might not understand the impact of this moment, but let’s just say as someone who hadn’t experienced a company living out their work-life balance policies, I was well and truly flabbergasted.

Over the last few months, I have found that beyond getting the job, God has continued to give me reasons to be thankful for my new job. This ranges from the working from home days that allow me to have an evening to myself to a supportive team that is happy to help with my workload. Also, I’m thankful for the fact that I love the work. One of the reasons that I was attracted to my new job was because it was a departure from what I had been working on for the last few years. It’s the same industry, but it involved a learning curve as well as an opportunity to expand my horizons and not only has the work been enjoyable, but God has shown up in the learning. Time and time again, I’ve found myself working on something where at the beginning I have no idea how exactly it will get done, but by His grace it is getting done and getting done well (if I do say so myself, though it’s really His favour).

At the start of this blog post, I pointed out that obedience to God pays off. I said this because I had the option between 2 jobs and while the other job might have been more prestigious, based on the job spec I doubt that it would have afforded the ability to be able to choose to leave my work in the office or to work to flexible deadlines or even just the ability to be able to focus on other areas of my life. In Psalm 127: 2, it talks about “it is useless for you to work so hard from early morning until late at night, anxiously working for food to eat; for God gives rest to his loved ones.” and that summaries my new job update. God has taken me out of a situation of anxiously toiling to provide for myself to a place where He is giving me rest.

Saying that, I have to be perfectly honest in admitting that I’m still having to work out what life as God intended looks like. After years of working all hours, I’m having to remind myself that it’s fine if a particular task waits till the next day and I have to responsible for my workaholic tendencies. I’m continuing to make changes that allows to me have a work-life balance, where life is the priority over work. In the meantime, I am grateful to be able to look at my life and acknowledge that it’s a far cry from where I was in 2018 when I walked away from my last job. If you haven’t done so already, check out the testimony about how I got a new job and promotion at the same time here.