Godly perspective or excuse for failure?

I have a job interview on Tuesday for a chaplaincy role in a school. It’s the kind of job that I’ve not done before but connects on many levels with my experience and passions and when I’ve told people about it they’ve been enormously encouraging and affirming and tell me it would be a great fit for me and a brilliant opportunity.

Then I tell them there are seven candidates so the chances of me ending up with the job are slim. Anyone who’s dragged themselves through GCSE Maths will confirm that this is a statistically accurate statement.

However, four times in the last two days, this statistically accurate statement has prompted the response, ‘well, if it’s God will for you to get the job, then you’ll get the job’ or variations on that response.

I’ve been surprised at how I’ve felt about these well-intended comments. They’ve come from mature Christians and I’ve made the same comment myself many, many times, but this time they’ve got my back up a little bit. The simple fact is that I worked really hard on my application. And I worked really hard to get the experience to write about in my application. On a human level, I’ve been short-listed for the job because I’m a good candidate and because I communicate well on paper. Interestingly, nobody said, when I told them I was doing the application, ‘well, if it’s God’s will for you to get an interview, you’ll get an interview’. There was an implicit acknowledgement that in order to get an interview you have to put the work in.

So why does that not seem to translate to this next phase in the same way? Why, when I’ve told people that I’m one of seven candidates, has no-one said ‘well, you’ll just have to prepare really well for the interview’? The fact is that if I get this job it'll be because I’m the best candidate. And I’d like to think that God cares enough about this school and these young people for it to be his will that the best candidate gets the job.

Clearly at this point we start to creep into the murky waters of defining ‘best candidate’, and it’s maybe at this point that the issue of God’s intervention starts to make sense; God’s idea of ‘best’ in this context might be very different to that of the interview panel. The last two years have taught me that far more reguarly than is comfortable life simply doesn't work out in the way we expect. So the 'best' candidate might someone who doesn't seem to fit a role in the way the panel anticipates but their apparently odd decision is vindicated down the line by a turn of events or development opportunity that was impossible to predict at the time of the interview. So in a context like this where the panel is made up of Christians I'd like to think that during the day on Tuesday each of those individuals will be asking God to show them his best candidate, and for them to have the courage to act on what they discern as a result.

So does that mean I can just roll up for the interview armed with nothing but the gift of the gab and wearing something dragged from the back of the wardrobe hastily ironed? Of course not. But it worries me that the 'if it's God will...' approach can lead to at best a naivety and at worst an arrogance that gives me permission to take no responsibility for my choices.

The irony of this situation is, of course, the fact that I believe that if God wants me to get this job, I will. I believe that because I've seen God come through for me in some amazing ways in the past, and he has a funny way of knowing what I need better than I do. But I also believe that this is a two-way thing and he can only use what I give him to use. And, frankly, I want my contribution to be the best it can be.