It is well that you have completed your studies, for knowledge is a gift, but it is faith that must now be your candlestick, holding the light by which you see the path ahead. You seek a job. You feel the weight of being the first child, the bearer of responsibilities. These are not small things, yet they are the very trials in which faith is made to triumph. True faith scorns trial and outlives it. It is not worth having if it does not. When the darkness of this unbelieving world tries to quench your light, remember that if your faith cannot bear testing, it is well that it gives way, so it may drive you to the true faith which God alone can give.
This is no hasty opinion. We have searched it, so it is. Prayer is heard of God. The hand that moves the world is not shortened that it cannot provide a place for you. Yet, do not let the desire for employment swallow up the greater need. Another man’s faith is no faith for you. Christ must be your Christ, and the trust that saves you must be your own. It is the lifeblood of faith: leaning with all your weight upon Him, not upon the arm of flesh, not upon your degree, not upon your own diligence, though diligence is right. Faith looks to Christ, and be sure of this, His eye always meets the eye that looks to Him. He delights to be trusted. It is His joy.
You speak of spiritual growth. This is a fresh desire, a right one. Let it be living feeling, fresh from the deep fountains of the heart. A patched-up faith, inherited from custom, believing what the church believes without knowing what that is, will not save your soul. I hate excitement that needs to be pumped up. Your motive must be pure, your faith childlike. Growth comes often not by adding comforts, but by seeing the Lord in the ashes of our own insufficiency. When we abhor our pride, when we nauseate our self-reliance, then our eye sees Him. A faith-look at Jesus breaks the heart for sin and from sin, and that is true growth.
You fear the burden. You ask, "Will God plead against me with His great power?" The answer of faith is, "No." He will put strength into you. The smallest faith, if it be true faith, is recognized by Christ Himself. He rebukes it because it is little, but He smiles upon it because it is faith! Do not despise the day of small things. Great faith sees light in the thickest darkness. It takes no more energy for God to give you a job than it did for Mr. George Mueller to feed thousands of orphans. The world calls walking by faith a pious freak, but it is the very way of the kingdom.
Do everything fresh, as if you had never done it before, serving God even in the blunders. Your heart blundering the right way, blundering into the hearts of men by its sincerity, this is a blessed thing. The hour of darkness is an hour of danger; suffering is a fruitful soil for sin. It was said of Job, "In all this he sinned not, nor charged God foolishly." Yet how many of us, under far less, have sinned and charged God foolishly? Be on your guard. Let not the ache of the ache, the waiting, breed bitterness.
Venture your all upon the truth of God. Faith is not a blind thing, for it begins with knowledge; it is no speculative thing, for it stakes its destiny on revelation. The Gospel is there. Hear it. Hear it again, till by the hearing of it God sends you faith, and faith grasps salvation. You shall know the Lord personally for your good, and that is the only good which makes prosperity safe or adversity bearable.