How to Live in the Heart of God’s Plan

It's been three months since the last episode... and also three months since I started my new job! Coincidence? Of course not. I've been giving my best and soaking in this sweet answered prayer, and would love to share my top three lessons from job hunting in 2025. May we remember God is preparing us for so much more than this next step. There's no better place than being right in the heart of his plan.

Listen to You Are You Christian podcast for women on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, and read the transcript below.

Hi friends,

Happy Spring! I hope your season is off to a lovely start. I’m guessing it’s been colder than usual? I’m prepping this episode on my couch, in a hoodie, covered by a blanket, and watching it rain outside. It’s probably a good 10 degrees Celsius cooler than it usually is at this time of year, but maybe God is teaching us about patience even in something as simple as the weather and allowing us to notice new things.

So it’s been three months since the last episode, and I can tell you exactly why. On March 3, I started a new job, and it’s been a whirlwind. A really wonderful whirlwind after a waiting-on-God period. So in this episode, I wanted to share a couple of my learnings in hopes they will resonate with you if you’re currently in, planning on being in, or may unexpectedly find yourself in the job hunt. As always, if you have any questions about anything or want to chat, feel free to send me a DM.

If you’re applying for a new job right now and going through the interview process, I pray it’s been a great time of relying on God. I remember the tension of what I hoped for and what I was seeing, and that tender period of hoping that God will come through with the “better than I could ask or imagine” role. I want to encourage us to always put our full faith in God and to remember he sees way, way, way beyond this moment. We might be so focused on this next chapter starting, and God knows how he’s preparing us for so much beyond.

Back in the fall, I was walking with a friend and sharing with her about how my comms role at The Salvation Army was a mat leave cover and that I’d need to start looking for something else in a few months. She asked me if I was looking for something similar, and I said I’d recently had this prayer session with God and felt him ask me, like,

“Clean slate… if you could do anything, what would you want to do?”

I think at that point, with the job market the way it is, I thought it made sense to look for open roles with similar titles to what I was doing or had done before. But what I truly wanted? I’ve long wanted a ministry-related day job, and I thought with my corporate, startup, and nonprofit experience, I’d be really good at fundraising. Also, I’d moved to Toronto in faith and had been seeing fruit from it, but my then-job was in internal comms so I’d only really been meeting people in my organization. I just felt that if God called me to Toronto, then he had more, and I hoped that my new role would allow me to work with many different people across various industries in Toronto. Also also, I prayed that my new boss and team would be really excited to welcome me and see my background as a huge asset.

Long story short, it’s been nearly three months at my new job and it blows my mind how faithful God has been. In the first three months, I’ve organized an event for 25 churches, meet or host corporate partners weekly, and am in the thick of leading a refresh on various fundraising initiatives, to name a couple of things. And I truly feel empowered to bring my full self to work. When I was applying and interviewing, I had a friend who was a recruiter at a big bank and was like, “I have a role in marketing, you’d be great, send me your resume,” and I was like… financially and prestige-wise, the role is appealing, but I feel like I’d have to hide or tone down a lot of what I feel makes me me. All to say that going through the process and seeing the closed and open doors is normal and can help us better understand and appreciate God’s blessing when it comes, amen?

During the process, I felt there were a few things I did that really helped:

Pray regularly and wait on God

Some of my friends joked that I went into hibernation. I had quite a few “Are you okay??” texts. And the truth is that I was good, just in my process. When I had “I am impatient and just want to know what’s next” moments, I had them with God.

It would be so great if God just told us where to apply, how to reach out to the hiring manager, gave us the perfect words that hit just right in the cover letter, and so we only had to apply for one job at the right time—but that’s not how it works. It’s often many hours of reading, writing, reviewing, waiting, reaching out, preparing, interviewing, waiting some more, etc. It’s easy to get stressed out, even worried, if we’re not waiting on God.

So there’s no condemnation if the job search has felt stressful. God understands fully. But I can guarantee you 100%, because this is God’s character 100%, that he will help and guide you every day and lead you to the perfect thing for you, if you surrender to him, obey him, and seek him daily. Short prayers work, but it’s for our joy and blessing to be worshipping God just because of who he is, talking to him like our best friend about our hopes and dreams, and just resting in his embrace when we’re weary and need comfort.

We never want just any job, amen? God has a plan for our whole lives and we want to be on the right path! Where God wants us, there is much favor and blessing. May we hold tight to his promises.

Be open and move in faith

If you’re applying, praying, and giving your best, and nothing is happening, truly maybe the time hasn’t come yet. Appreciate that you are getting very good at perfecting your resume, pitching your skills, and networking. Trust that when God’s doors open, they open.

For me, since I wanted a job in an area that I didn’t have direct experience in, I cold-emailed the hiring manager to see if she would even be open to an out-of-the-box candidate. Thankfully she was. Since there’s often some time before postings close and interviews are scheduled, I was still applying elsewhere and all of a sudden found myself interviewing for three similar-ish roles:

• one in marketing for a youth social services organization,

• one in philanthropy comms for what had long been one of my dream “God, I would love to work there” Christian organizations, and

• one for my now role in fundraising and community engagement.

All three were for supporting people experiencing poverty, an area that I felt God has been leading me to for two years—a far cry from my old luxury media food-reviewing expat life in publishing days. Some people are surprised by the change but I find it so energizing. I love mixing up life and learning about brand new areas (and corners of the world!). More on this in another episode perhaps.

There is no scientific formula for choosing the right role, but in my case, there were things that I wanted, e.g. to be able to have a ministry-related job in fundraising and to meet and work with people from across Toronto). This meant that the marketing job probably wasn’t the right one… but it was the highest paid. This also meant that the philanthropy comms job, even though I loved the organization and the hiring team was amazing, might not be the right one either as it was an internally focused role… but I’d wanted to work there for so long. So for my current job, I loved the hiring team and felt like I was totally honest in my interview answers, but if I’m honest I wasn’t sure how they felt about me. Would they give me and my entrepreneurial nature a chance?

Later I found out that while I was moping to God like "I'm not sure if they like me...," my now boss asked everyone involved to move as quickly as they could because they didn’t want to lose me. All to say, we're not always good at reading emotions clearly especially during something like the interview process so it's so much better to seek and trust God than to go by what we see. On the day I signed the contract, I cancelled my second interviews.

So may we not look at human signs only. God teaches us this throughout the Bible, right? This morning—and this is an entirely different context—but in Acts 21 everyone around Paul was telling him not to go because he’d get put in chains, and his response was, “I’m ready to do what God wants.” But all to say, sometimes what seems like the obvious choice from a human lens is not what God wants. We want what God wants. For me, I’m sure the other roles would have been great, but I truly walk into work excited to get going every day and feel pretty unboxed—like I am valued for my true self.

I’m not sure what this looks like for you, but I pray you seek God as you decide. Sometimes God only gives us one open door. Sometimes he opens multiple and gives us the choice, and they all could be good. Sometimes multiple doors open but some are better than others. Trust God, do your best, and trust that God will confirm and redirect. I think there’s something so wonderful about not needing to worry. We are God’s sheep and he will lead us and guide us over and over.

Don’t feel pressure to talk about your journey… but don’t be afraid to either

When we’re waiting on God to answer our prayers, we can feel vulnerable. We know God wants us to have faith and pray for one another, but sometimes it still feels hard. Does this mean we’re obligated to share our hearts with everyone who asks?

I recommend sharing with at least one person who you trust to pray with you along this journey. For me, this was my mom, who I trust completely and know she will faithfully pray for and with me and only want God’s best for me. On days when I was impatient or in my feels, she’d always remind me to believe that God’s best is coming. Even when we know the truth and know we have our Bibles, the encouragement from a fellow believer is so sweet.

I also found it lovely to go up for prayer on Sundays. Every service, my church invites the congregation to come to the front for one-on-one prayer and I was often up there asking for prayer at different stages of the journey.

Some of the prayers were very prophetic and gave me great comfort, reminding me of the goodness of God and his plan and to trust in his timing. While I’ve been at my church for nearly a year now, I hadn’t yet had a one-on-one conversation with one of the female pastors but was matched with her for prayer one Sunday. She knew nothing about me but prophetically said a number of things that resonated deeply, including that she felt some people were watching my journey and would be blessed seeing God in it.

This is foundational for Christians, isn’t it? Whether it’s faith in the job hunt, in waiting for marriage, or something else, by living our lives full of faith in God, it can be mesmerizing for those looking for hope. Christ is our sure foundation, and never have I ever sought God and had the situation turn out worse than I think. It is always better! The waiting process may not be easy, but waiting on God yields the sweetest fruit.

So thanks for being here and I hope this has been encouraging and useful if you’re waiting on God for breakthrough. I’m also sitting here smiling as this is an episode I’ve wanted to share for a while—as I felt like I was constantly learning new things—but perhaps it’s best shared now as my thoughts are a bit more ‘tied in a bow’ and clear.

Also, I just want to say that I prepped a different episode weeks ago but always felt this sense of hesitancy when I was going to record it. So I prayed, re-read it, scrapped it (I don’t think it was bad but more helpful for me to process rather than someone else to learn from), and wrote this one instead.

May we have an abundance mindset and again trust God. It’s OK to start over! It’s fun when God writes a totally new chapter. Did anyone we admire in the Bible have a basic storyline? God writes the best adventures and he has one for all of us. May we enjoy the journey and keep testifying.

Love you, friends. More soon.