Among the unemployed

I took a little walk on the Inter-Webs and found the following information about the word "unemployed."

As an adjective, the term primarily means: not employed; without a job; out of work.

As a noun, the word -- when used with a plural verb -- refers to people who do not have jobs (usually preceded by the word the).

So I did some more checking and found that the jobless rate in the United States held at 5.5 percent in March, the same as in February and the lowest in nearly 7 years. The number of unemployed persons was little changed at 8.6 million. Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates for adult men (5.1 percent), adult women (4.9 percent), teenagers (17.5 percent), whites (4.7 percent), blacks (10.1 percent), Asians (3.2 percent), and Hispanics (6.8 percent) showed little or no change in March.

I am interested in these numbers for the first time in my adult life because I currently am among the unemployed.

Well, I guess you could say I am nearly unemployed. I still have my pastoral duties at Union Baptist Church. And I am doing some consulting work -- like working on a grant application for a local business -- so I do have some income.

But a colleague of mine and I recently had our positions eliminated at our shared place of employment -- what would amount to my "day job" -- and through no fault of our own, found ourselves among the ranks of the "unemployed."

Don't get me wrong, I have been unemployed before. However, those times have been -- for the most part -- my choice. Once I was let go from a job I had been at for nine years because of a personality conflict with a supervisor, but most of my time unemployed has really been periods of ministry-centered self-employment.

If I were just a few years older, I might just take early retirement and move on down to Shiloh and become the grey-haired Razorback I always planned to be (just maybe a little bit earlier than expected). That is, of course, if the fine people of Luber Route and Hanover will accept me as one of their own.

Through all of this, I can say with all sincerity that I have not been troubled or even once doubted that another position would come along. I have not once worried about how we would get by.

Why?

Because I believe what the Psalmist wrote in Psalm 37 verse 25 ... "I have been young and now I am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his descendants begging bread."

Not that I am righteous on my own, mind you. But the scriptures say that believers take on the "righteousness of Christ" when we trust him as our Lord and Savior.

So tell me ... Why should I worry?