Desree emails to ask, "Pastor John, what advice and biblical encouragement do you have for college graduates who are unemployed or have no certainty of a job in the near future?" Before I got really practical about strategies that they might be using or not using to make themselves available to employers, I would want to talk at a deeper level first about, do not be anxious about your life.

What you should eat, what you should drink, what you should put on. This is Jesus directly talking to this issue it seems to me. Consider the birds of the air, this Matthew 6. They don't sow or reap or gather into barns. Your Heavenly Father feeds them. Consider the lilies.

They don't they don't coil or spin. Yet I tell you, Solomon, was not arrayed like one of these. God will take care of you. Seek first the kingdom. So that's my first counsel. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. Be about kingdom things, which of course going to include looking for a job, but focused on God's glory.

And all these things will be added to you. And you know one of the amazing things about that is that it's followed by, don't be anxious about tomorrow. This is verse 34. For tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. Don't make tomorrow's trouble part of today's burden, because God apportions mercy for every day.

Lamentations 3.22. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new, new every morning. So each day has trouble of its own, Jesus said. And Jeremiah said in Lamentations 3.22, every morning has mercy of its own. And I think Jesus has tailor-made the mercies for the miseries.

So tomorrow you're going to have mercy for the challenge of that day. Trust him for this. Take promises like, "My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory." Philippians 4.19. Or God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you'll abound in every good work.

So that's where I'd start. I'd start with these stunning, amazing, practical, precious promises of God to take care of us. And here's an illustration from my own life of an application of that. When I was in Germany, finishing up my doctoral work, I'm almost 28 years old now. In fact, I am 28 years old.

Turned 28 just before I finished. So I've been in school for 28 years almost. Home and school. And I haven't had a real job yet, okay? And I've got a wife and I've got a kid now. And I need a job. I just want to be a good husband, father, put bread on the table.

And I'm in Germany and nobody knows me in America. How am I going to get a job? And I got a letter from Dan Fuller, my precious doctor, father, friend. Actually, not doctor, father, but just mentor from seminary. And he quoted to me. I've never seen this. And I've used it over and over again for comfort and encouragement.

2 Corinthians 4.1, which says, I'm going to read it literally. "Therefore, having this ministry, as we have been shown mercy, we do not lose heart." The "as," he said, "John, you will have a ministry." That is, you will have a job. "By the same mercy that you were saved." That's the way he understands the "as." "Therefore, having this ministry, as we have been shown mercy, we don't lose heart." And it gave me tremendous encouragement.

And God worked a miracle. He brought one--I wrote 30 letters of inquiry to churches, denominations, and schools saying, "I'm ready to do whatever with the Bible you want me to do to advance the cause of the kingdom. Anybody have work for me to do, please? I need to support my family." And one solitary door opened up.

A temporary sabbatical replacement at Bethel College. And I said, "I'll do anything." So I'd never been to Minnesota. I didn't know Bethel existed. And I took that job, and God, in his mercy, made it last for six years until he called me to Bethlehem. And so that promise was really, really crucial.

And one last encouraging thing about closed doors, because probably the person who asked this question has knocked on a lot of doors, like me. 30 letters, zero response. Just one open door. If you read Acts 16 in particular, and see how Paul was being led, he wanted to minister.

He wanted work to do in cities. And so he tried to go into Asia, and it said the Holy Spirit stopped him. Forbade him. Wouldn't let him go. And so they went up into Bithynia, and then it says the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them to go into Bithynia.

So they made another left turn and went over to Troas. And in Troas, Paul had a vision of a man in Macedonia, which is across the water there, over in Europe, so to speak. And the man said, "Come over and help us." And the gospel spread from an Eastern Asia religion, now penetrating into Europe because of two closed doors.

So my concluding encouragement is God's closings are his planning. You may be puzzled, he's planning. You may feel delayed, God is designing. Trust him. And then of course we could get practical and say, "How many people have you written to?" and all that, but these are the kinds of things I think that really matter.

Trust the Lord's timing, and give yourself faithfully to seeking to do his calling. Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for listening. Please email your questions to us at AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org. You will find thousands of other free resources online from John Piper at DesiringGod.org. I'm your host Tony Reinke, thanks for listening.