Testimony – The Sabbath and the testing of my faith

If you were unemployed, spent a year waiting to get a job and finally got your first offer, would you do anything that could jeopardize that offer, assuming everything about the offer seemed perfectly fine? Well, that’s exactly what I did. I took a step of faith by raising the issue of keeping the Sabbath just before I signed, and the offer was pulled. The testimony is in what happened next.

Once upon a time, after spending almost a year looking for a job after my MBA, I finally got my first offer. This was to join the leadership programme of a global company based in Singapore that would have taken me to many countries over the next twelve months with an almost guaranteed full time role somewhere in the world. Sounds exciting right? At this stage, I was already tired of job hunting so I was naturally very excited to receive my first offer, which was also an FX-paying contract.

Over the past year during my waiting season, I had learnt about keeping the Sabbath faithfully and developed a sense of renewed joy and peace in keeping it faithfully. I had found a new community in Church and the Sabbath had taken a whole new meaning in my life. I had reached a stage in my spiritual life where I did not want a job to deprive me of this new found joy and peace. Therefore, before I signed the contract, I mentioned to the HR and hiring managers that I keep the Sabbath between Friday sunset to Saturday sunset and that my hope was that this is something they would be able to respect if I accepted their offer. They said that they needed to think about it.

That conversation happened on a Friday. I became so scared of losing the offer. Remember, after spending almost a year trying to get a job, this was my first offer, and I had just taken a risk (scratch that…a step of faith) by mentioning the Sabbath at this crucial juncture. I remember doing a dry fast and praying all through that weekend. Sadly, they came back on Monday to say that they couldn’t guarantee my keeping of the Sabbath and immediately pulled the offer. I was so dejected and low but I took strength in God’s word and promises, and chose to see this as a test of my faithfulness.

Guess what happened next? Literally that same day, later in the evening, the process that led to the job I subsequently accepted, commenced. The new offer I accepted was a promotion vs my pre-MBA role (which is very unusual for MBA graduates who mostly get Associate level roles), over 2x more than the base salary I was negotiating with the other company, they relocated me to the country I really wanted to be in, I got my visa within 24hrs, and the head of HR (who was Jewish, alongside the CEO) perfectly understood my Sabbath-keeping desires. For the few years that I worked with that firm, not once was my keeping the Sabbath ever at risk. My team mates all knew about my Sabbath beliefs and respected it.

Glory to God and I’m forever grateful for how things have panned out since I took that step of faith to mention the Sabbath to that employer, even though I knew that it could jeopardise the job offer in front of me. Things may have turned out for the worse after the rejection and I may have had to stay on the market for longer. But there were some things and beliefs that gave me the strength to take that step of faith:

• Believing that come what may, God will not withold any good thing from those who walk uprightly and do what is right (Psalms 84:11);

• God will not leave me nor forsake me (Heb 13:5); Weeping may endure for a night but joy comes in the morning (Psalms 30:5)

• Psalms 40 was my go to chapter for encouragement in this season. I encourage you to study it. Verses 1-3 says: “I waited patiently for the Lord; and He inclined to me, and heard my cry. He also brought me up out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my steps. He has put a new song in my mouth—praise to our God; many will see it and fear, and will trust in the Lord.”

• I had chosen to have faith in God in a number of situations in times past and He never failed me, so why would He fail me now? At the time, this was my greatest faith test yet and I didn’t know what stood on the other side of my fears but I chose to find out by taking a step of faith.

• I had a prayer partner through this season who I shared the details of all that was happening with. I was encouraged to take that step of faith, inspired by my prayer partner who had also taken a similar test of faith when in high school and decided not to take national exams on the Sabbath.

• Finally, God who opened the door for the MBA in such a grand manner (causing the AdCom to overturn their decision for me, then granting me a 100% tuition scholarship which I didn’t apply for), definitely knew that I would wait for a year to find a job after the MBA and He must have had a plan on how to get me out of that season in such a way that only He could get the glory. The question was if I would pass the test! The real faith test in that moment was if I truly and deeply believed that if I stood for my faith, God could either still grant me the job or even if I lost the offer, believed that He could come through for me in other unimaginable ways. I’m so glad that I chose faith over fear.