The bus home is the only bit of the day that is hers, and she has started sitting on the top deck because on the bottom deck people can see your face.
Four times this week.
Not told off. That is what she keeps saying to herself and it does not help. Corrected. Kindly, mostly, and quickly, and by three different people, and every single one of them said "no worries" afterwards, and every single one of them then did the thing themselves rather than watch her do it again.
Monday: the way she had filed something. Tuesday: twice, once about a phone manner and once about a spreadsheet. Thursday: the big one, in front of two other people, about an email she had sent that she had checked three times before sending.
She started praying about this job in July, before she got it, and every morning since. She has a way of doing it at the bus stop with her earphones in so it looks like she is listening to something. Nothing fancy. Please help me do well today. Please let them be glad they took me on.
And what has arrived is four corrections and a feeling in her chest at about half past three every afternoon.
She has started to read the corrections as the answer. Not consciously. It is more that a sentence has assembled itself somewhere in the last month and she noticed it fully formed on Thursday, and the sentence is: I asked and this is what came, so this is what He thinks.
If you have ever prayed about something every morning and then read the outcome as a reply, you know that top deck. And you know how quiet that particular thought is, and how long it can sit there before you catch it.
What you are actually reading
Let me sit on the top deck and say the thing plainly, because it is easier to see from one seat over.
You are not upset about a spreadsheet. You are upset because you have been treating a month at work as God's answer to a prayer, and the month has been bumpy, so the answer reads as no.
That is the actual injury, and it is much bigger than Thursday.
So let me put the word straight first, because it is the thing underneath.
Blessed does not mean it is going well. It means the favor of God is resting on a person, His face is turned toward them. It is a fact about where He is looking. It is not a performance review and it has never once been readable off a week.
Now let me show you a boy in the middle of a mess, in one of the quietest verses in the Bible.
And the child Samuel grew on, and was in favour both with the Lord, and also with men.1 Samuel 2:26
Read where that sentence sits. It is dropped into the middle of one of the worst chapters in the Old Testament. Eli's sons are running the sanctuary and doing appalling things in it, and the text has just described them, and then, like somebody quietly opening a window in a bad room, it says: and the child Samuel grew on, and was in favor.
Nobody in that chapter is writing that down. There is no ceremony. There is not even a story attached to it. It is one sentence about a boy getting on with it in a bad place, and it is there because God noticed.
You have favor with the Lord right now, in a month nobody would write up, and it is not waiting for a week that goes well. First Samuel 2:26 states it flatly in the middle of a mess and gives no evidence for it, and it is the Holy Spirit who takes a line about an unremarkable boy and lays it on a girl on a top deck.
Grew on is the important part
Now the verb, because it is doing more than people notice.
Grew on. Not: arrived. Not: excelled. Grew, which is a word for something happening slowly and mostly invisibly, and which nobody has ever used to describe a good week.
And that verse comes back later almost word for word about somebody else. Luke says of Jesus: and Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man. Increased. The same shape. Written about eighteen years nobody recorded anything else about.
So here is what that does to your month. Four corrections in a week is not evidence against growth. It is what growth looks like from the inside, at nineteen, in a first job, and there is no version of learning a job that skips it.
You are growing, which is the actual verb in that verse, and growing has never once looked impressive while it is happening. Scripture uses grew on and increased for both Samuel and Jesus rather than any word about arriving, and it is the Holy Spirit whose fruit Paul describes as something borne over time rather than produced on request.
And let me say something about the three people correcting you. Somebody who corrects you and then says no worries and does it themselves is not building a case against you. That is what training looks like when the people doing it are busy. A person building a case does not correct you. They stop asking you to do things.
They are still asking you to do things.
You are being taught rather than assessed, and the difference is written all over how those four conversations actually went. The written word shows Samuel learning in a place with no ceremony and no praise, and it is the Holy Spirit who gives a person the wisdom to read a room accurately when their chest is telling them a different story at half past three.
About the prayer at the bus stop
Now the prayer, because that is the piece that has been quietly going wrong and it matters more than the job.
You asked Him to help you do well and to let them be glad they took you on. There is nothing wrong with that prayer at all. It is honest and it is small and it is the kind of thing He likes.
What has gone wrong is that you started reading the week as the reply.
That is the habit to break now, at nineteen, rather than at thirty five, because if you carry it forward it will do you real damage. A week is not an answer. A month is not an answer. Circumstances are not how God speaks about whether He is for you, because if they were, then every hard month anybody ever had would be a message and the whole Bible would read very differently.
You were never being answered in a spreadsheet, and He has not gone quiet on you. Scripture states God's favor on Samuel with no supporting evidence in the chapter at all, and it is the Holy Spirit who bears witness with your spirit about your standing, which is a witness that is not routed through your line manager.
I do not know how the job goes. I am not going to guess. It might get easier by Christmas, or you might be somewhere else by Christmas, and neither of those would tell you anything about God's face. Keep praying at the bus stop. Just stop reading the week for a reply.
So here is what I want to hand you before your stop.
Four corrections is not an answer. It is a week. And the sentence that assembled itself in you on Thursday, the one that says this is what came so this is what He thinks, is not true and it is worth catching now, because you are nineteen and that sentence will follow you into every job you ever have if you let it stand.
You are blessed on this bus, in this month, with Thursday still in your chest, and blessed means the favor of God is resting on you here. First Samuel 2:26 puts favor on a boy in the middle of a chapter about a mess, and it is the Holy Spirit who makes that a present fact about a girl on the top deck rather than a nice line about somebody ancient.
So take the word. Not the week's version. His. Say it over the month you have actually had, the filing, the phone manner, the email you checked three times, the earphones at the bus stop, and mean by it what Samuel's verse means: I am growing, and He is toward me while I do it.
You have favor with the Lord and a job you are still learning, and those two sit in the same seat perfectly well. Scripture puts the growing and the favor in one sentence rather than making one wait for the other, and His Spirit is the one bearing fruit in a person slowly, which is the only speed it has ever gone at.
Declare this over yourself
Say this out loud on the bus or walking home. You are in Christ and Christ is in you, and the standing to say what a word means over your own life came with Him and not with a good week at work. Scripture is under every line here and the Holy Spirit carries it, not how confident you sound at nineteen. What He does with this job is His to decide, in His own way and in His own time, and I am not going to guess it for you. Your part is to say it and mean it, and to keep praying at the bus stop.
- Fourth correction of this week, you are somebody teaching me a job and you are not a verdict on whether God is with me. First Samuel 2 says the child Samuel grew on, and grew is a slow word on purpose.
- Sentence that says I asked and this is what came so this is what He thinks, get out, in the name of Jesus. It is written that God's favor rested on a boy in the middle of the worst chapter in that book, and nobody in it was writing that down either.
- Lord, You are not answering me in a spreadsheet and You have not gone quiet on me. I am growing rather than failing, and I am naming one thing out loud before my stop comes up.
1 Samuel 2:26
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