Does Your Ongoing Job Search Feel Like It Will Never End?

“Joseph was thirty years old when he entered the service of Pharaoh king of Egypt.”
Gen. 41:46

Do you think Joseph ever had the thought that his talents were being wasted while he spent those 13 years in slavery and prison? Being a man of God didn’t make him any less human. So it’s quite likely he had those thoughts, as well as some of the following, from time to time.

• “Is it possible God has forgotten me?”
• “Did I possibly do something to deserve this?”
• “Will I ever find meaning in life again?”
• “I’m not getting any younger, God. Don’t you think now would be a good time to open these prison doors?”
• “God, I know You can use me here, but there is so much more I would like to do.”

How do Joseph’s thoughts compare to some of  yours?

Do you find that you resonate with some of these thoughts (or maybe all of them)? Do you find yourself asking these same questions, or some very similar, of yourself and God? Absolutely nothing wrong with that. You are in good company with Joseph if you do.

Remember, when we read about Joseph we have the benefit of reading the whole story, and it only take a few minutes to read it. Joseph didn’t have that perspective. He lived the story daily, and to him it was a much longer story…like 13 years long. He couldn’t see what God was doing. He couldn’t see how God was working in Pharaoh’s situation. He couldn’t see how God was bringing the country’s need, climate conditions, governmental leadership vacuums, and Pharaoh’s curiosity together to form a void He would move Joseph in to fill. All he saw was day after day of sameness.

Your Job Search…

You may see your life in much the same way. You may see your day-after-day job search sameness much like Joseph’s day-after-day prison term sameness. You don’t see the whole story; you can’t see what God is doing. You can’t see what God is orchestrating.

Like Joseph, all you can see and do is today. And like Joseph you can:

• Purpose to do what you can in your search.
• Prepare as if today is the day you are to be released.
• Be faithful to yourself and how God has made you right where you are.
• Be faithful to God by practicing spiritual disciplines.
• Believe that He will open your prison door in His time.

So how are you doing in your sameness? Take courage from Joseph’s story, because his God is your God, and God is at work in your life just as He was in Joseph’s.

Dear Author of the whole story, I must confess I get frustrated by the waiting. Help me to trust your process and to prove myself faithful.