Question
Dear Gramps,
I am a graphic designer and got offered a job where I would be working on mainly tobacco material. This would be my first job and I should be happy I found something but I don’t know how to unite this with my faith. What are your thoughts?
Thank you in advance.
Julia
Answer
Dear Julia,
Congratulations on your first job. You must be very excited. Yet, as you said there are some complications with this particular job. Let’s consider this for a moment. First it is your first job. It will give you experience and could help you move on to another job in the future. On the other hand, I’m guessing that graphic design has something to do with marketing? So in other words you would be helping to sell cigarettes, is that correct?
If you were my granddaughter, I would counsel you not to use your God-given talent to promote a product that God and modern medicine have both decreed as dangerous. Trust the Lord, Julia. Throughout my life whenever I have sacrificed in order to do what I felt the Lord wanted, He has always blessed me. If you turn down this job, and wait for something else, He will bless you too.
Elder Faust said something that applies here:
The Lord can do remarkable miracles with a person of ordinary ability who is humble, faithful, and diligent in serving the Lord and seeks to improve himself. This is because God is the ultimate source of power. By the gift of the Holy Ghost we can not only know all things but even “the truth of all things.”
Many of you worry about your future. I think every conscientious young man [or young woman] does. But you do not realize what opportunities lie ahead of you.
Acting for Ourselves and Not Being Acted Upon
Hold out for the blessings that the Lord desires to bestow upon you. You won’t regret it.
Gramps
