As we enter into another season of Thanksgiving, I am reminded of how good God is. Six years ago, I wrote an article entitled Thanksgiving 2018 – Why I am Thankful. 2018 was a tough year for me but at the same time, it was also a year of incredible blessings and of the Lord’s provision. God truly demonstrated His favor and goodness to me through so many discouraging circumstances that year and I will always be grateful for what God did for me. But in 2024, I have another reason to be grateful and I am reminded yet again that God is still good.
It all started in April of 2023. God blessed me with my wonder wife, Sarah, who is truly one-in-a-million. We were blessed that we got to honeymoon in Hawaii; a place that most people dream of seeing but never get to go in their lifetime. After we returned from our honeymoon, Sarah and I settled down in an apartment which was strategically only a few minutes away from my job.
Things were cushy at my job and I was consistently the second most productive technician on the team. One day, the owners of the company offered me a retirement package. The retirement plan was unusual as it wasn’t an IRA or 401K. To this day I still have no idea how the numbers work but the high level view of the plan was if I work for the company for ten years, the owners would cut me a check for $100,000. All I had to do is pay the taxes on it which would be deducted from my paycheck for the next three years. The one caveat of this retirement plan is if I am released or quit before the ten years, I get nothing and whatever I pay into taxes would be non-refundable.
I went home and talked it over with my wife. I went back and looked at my initial offer letter and found an at-will employment clause that essentially allowed the company to terminate my employment at any time with or without any reason. If the company wanted to, they could theoretically terminate my employment just shy of the ten years and they wouldn’t have to pay out the $100,000. Given that the company lacked integrity in a lot of their business dealings and mistreated a business partner who was subleasing from them, I didn’t have any reason to believe that they wouldn’t do that to their employees.
With all of that said, I respectfully declined the retirement plan and kept working. Several months went by and the manager pulled me into his office for my annual review. He asked me what my long term goals were and I told him that I wasn’t sure but I knew that I wanted to work my way up in the company so my wife could eventually quit her job to be a stay-at-home mom. The conversation went well and things were looking promising. A few more weeks went by and the manager called me into his office again. This time, I sensed something was very wrong before going into the meeting. The manager prefaced the conversation that they were wanting long term employees. He brought up the fact that I declined the retirement plan and that they couldn’t pay me any more money to help me achieve my long term goals. With all of those things said, the company gave me six weeks to find another job.
I was completely devastated. Never had I worked for a company who was willing to terminate my employment. I have always done good work for all of my employers both past and present. My work mantra are the words of Paul to the church in Colossae:
“And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ.” Colossians 3:23-24 NKJV
Prior to this job, all of my past employers knew I was a valuable asset because of my worth ethic and skill set. In fact, when I left my past jobs, almost all of them either presented a counter offer or attempted to work out some kind of deal to get me to stay with them. But for the first time in my life, I was working for an employer who wanted me gone and the reason they provided made no logical sense to me. It felt cruel that they would do this to a newly wed who was trying to find stability and build a life with his bride.
I tried fighting for my job but their minds were already made up. This situation put me under intense stress because I needed to find a new job and I only had six weeks to do it. I spoke to several friends and family members about it and they all had different things to say but the message was all the same – the whole situation was shady and I didn’t need to be working there.
When I went to church that Wednesday night, I didn’t go into any specifics but I asked for prayer because I was looking for another job. That Sunday, Sarah and I were approached by one of the women on the praise team and wanted to know what was going on. I shared with her that my employer was terminating my employment and I had six weeks to find another job. Without skipping a beat, she smiled and said, “That’s God.” I remember feeling puzzled and thought to myself – how could this possibly be God? It’s very clear to me that I am being treated unfairly and God isn’t doing to this to me – But I kept my thoughts to myself and carried on.
I spent the next few weeks applying for jobs on Indeed. I must have applied for at least two dozen jobs and only one replied back to me. I interviewed for it but never heard back from them. One evening, I was driving to Weatherford to see one of my best buds and on the way there, I was reminded of everything God did for me in 2018. I prayed out loud in my car, “Lord, I don’t understand why I’m going through this and I don’t blame you for it. I know You are good and You have always come through for me and I know this time You will. I trust You completely.” For the first time since I was informed by my employer that my services were no longer needed, I felt the stress lift off me and a peace came over me.
Some time later, I received a text message from a former coworker whom I haven’t heard from in over a year. My former coworker told me they were now living in Baltimore and they were working remotely for an MSP based out of Wyoming. They also shared with me that the company was growing and a tier 3 position opened up and they thought I would be a great fit for it. I then revealed to them that I was coincidentally enough looking for a job so they had me submit a résumé.
I had the interview and to be honest, it was one of the worst interviews I had. I was nervous, was too vague in my answers and didn’t feel confident. I knew there was one other candidate who was interviewing for the same position. I didn’t hear back from the company in a week which was a tell-tell sign that they offered the job to the other candidate. I was honestly fine with it because of how bad my interview was. Nonetheless, I kept applying for other jobs. Then out of the blue, I heard back from the company. Apparently they did offer the job to the other guy like I had suspected but the other guy declined and now they wanted to extend an offer to me. It was very obvious to me that the Lord was opening a door to me so I accepted the position which came with a 14% increase in pay and a 401K which I didn’t have at my previous job.
On my last day with my previous employer, it became clear to me why I was being let go. After I packed up, said my goodbyes, and left early that Friday, one of my good friends, who is still employed with my previous employer, called me an hour later and told me the company already filled my position. The new hire was starting Monday and was a buddy of the manager. What it boiled down to was they needed to make room for a friend of theirs and I was easiest target.
To be honest, I was upset because the manager gaslit me quite a bit when I fought to keep my job. Although, my new job came with a lot of great perks and was a significant improvement from my previous job, I struggled with bitterness and the feeling of rejection for many weeks. I still had so many unanswered questions and struggled to see how God could’ve been behind it. The only way I could reconcile it all was God took a bad situation and turn it into something positive. As weeks turned into months, it slowly became clear to me that God was truly orchestrating the whole thing.
A few weeks into my employment with my new job, my wife’s car broke down. Sarah’s car was a used salvage title and had almost 200K miles on it. We tried to get it diagnosed and repaired at the dealership but the cost of repairs was way more than what the car was worth. Because I was working from home, we made the decision to sell off Sarah’s car and she would take my car to work. We became a one car family which reduced the amount of money we were spending on both gas and car insurance. As a result, this allowed us to put more money down on the mortgage to Sarah’s house back in her hometown. It was truly a blessing and it would not have been possible if I still had to commute to work. I truly believe God foresaw that Sarah’s car would fail and timed all of it so it would work out for us in the best way possible.
Lastly, my current employer decided to have everyone come up to Wyoming for a company retreat in June. I shared an AirBnB with three other of my coworkers. The trip was a blast but on the last night, I finally got my answer as to why I was no longer needed at my previous employer and why God placed me with my current employer. On the last night, I got to having a deep conversation with one of my coworkers and the topic of faith opened up. This coworker shared their story with me and told me they were a PK (pastor’s kid) and spent his entire life running from God because of the hypocrisy he saw in the church. He told me, “I honestly don’t know why I’m sharing this with you but I feel comfortable with you for some reason.” I then revealed to him that I was a licensed minister with the Assemblies of God and I believed us meeting was a divine appointment. He told me that he always knew there was something different about me from our virtual meetings but he couldn’t pinpoint what it was until that moment. We had a really long conversation about faith and after we finished talking, he said, “I’m tired of running and I think I’m ready to give God another try.” We prayed and the next morning I flew back home to Dallas.
So was the woman at church who told me “that’s God” correct? Yes. I couldn’t see it at the time but God was definitely orchestrating the entire thing. It hurt at the beginning of it and to be honest, I may never know the full story but I do believe God’s sovereignty was at work. Despite how awful I was treated by my previous employer, God came through for me yet again like He always does. God is still good! In conclusion, I want to end this article with the following scripture verse which I believe is very applicable and true:
“A man’s heart plans his way, But the Lord directs his steps.”
Proverbs 16:9 NKJV
Joshua Hawk 