Christ’s Ambassador

On a Friday morning in the last week of June 2009 while preparing for the day’s job a young man came in to see me. What brought him took the TGIF from my tongue. I was working in one of the Regional Offices of a Telecommunication Company in Nigeria and expecting my erstwhile temporary appointment to be confirmed that month.

A phone call and several exclamations after, my line supervisor working at the Headquarters cast the die when he said; “Yes, its instruction from above and I don’t understand it too. Please, handover today.”

My next call was to God and in the Server Room which has also doubled as my prayer-room for the two years I had been employed in that company as Network Administrator, being out of bounds to all other staff. “Would you fire me when I am due for promotion?” I asked God, but He was silent.

Later, I began to obey the ‘instructions from above’. My mind ruminated on the story of Abraham and the Angelic call that stopped him from killing Isaac. My own story did not have that happy interlude. The handover was done and the necessary introductions of the new staff to the end-users of all IT equipments were done same day and I was good to go. Momentarily, darkness seemed to have covered the face of God.

With the counsel of compassionate managers around who were also puzzled, I prepared to hang around for a while to see if God had other plans for me in other areas of the Company. That made me to discover what seemed to be a good argument in my favor. The new employee was fresh from school and had no requisite experience for the job and the management didn’t seem to know about that.

I then had two options. The first was to watch idly while the young man made costly mistakes to ‘burn his fingers’ and also probably cause serious hitches to the operations of the company. That would at least quickly show that somebody took a bad decision in edging me out without following due procedures. The second option was to give him the needed support and orientation to ensure there was no downtime, since God had given him my job. So, what does God want in situations like this? I reckoned that if Jesus were in this situation, he would still say “thy will be done Oh Lord” and did something constructive. My heart chose the first option but I reluctantly went with Jesus.

The guy learned fast and I had a very good working relationship with him. I was trainer and his companion for one month. When salaries were paid in July, it was a pain but no longer news that the new staff enjoyed the promotion that was coming to me and my name was no longer on the company’s payroll.

However, I was still on somebody’s payroll. It happened before then that a testimony published on my blog titled “The Gains of Un-employment” was being considered by the Senior Editor of the HighCalling, and we had been at it for almost five months. The cash payment for putting it on the HighCalling website hit my account in the last week of July. This was how God paid my bills and proved that He is my Ultimate Employer and exceedingly great reward. Gen 15:1

Below are some other benefits which accrued from this sacrifice:

1. The young man became my good friend and professional colleague and though we did not share the same faith, yet we have tolerance for each other on spiritual matters.
2. I was able to use the grace of God to make good a potentially bad situation for the company and all stakeholders.
3. Months later, I got a referral through my line supervisor for a higher paying job.
4. I left the company without ill feelings as one leaves a company of good friends.

Questions for Meditation

• Did you at any time in the past allowed God to make use of the painful moments and circumstances in your life to extend his kingdom as he chose? What happened?
• Are you currently being marginalized or unjustly treated? What attitude might you put up to show your faith in a just God?
• When darkness seems to cover God’s face what do you do to remain focused?