Here’s How to Find Peace as You Look for Work
Whether you’re a recent college grad starting your career, an experienced professional whose job has come to an end, or a restless employee ready for a change, job hunting can feel like a daunting assignment. With its end date undefined, a job hunt requires loads of patience and positivity. Continually presenting your resume and putting yourself “out there” to big companies and potential bosses can be stressful and time consuming. Waiting for an email confirmation that you’ve been selected to move forward to the next round of interviews can be nerve-racking. Inevitably, you’ll face various forms of rejection…and the discouragement that follows.
It’s easy to lose heart when you’re looking for a job.
Reflection: How have you lost heart in your job search?
Though many aspects of job searching aren’t fun, it’s possible to experience a heart at peace—plus find some joy and excitement—as you look for work! Here’s how:
Keep your heart
Job searching is hard on a human heart. As you open yourself up to new opportunities, successes, rejection….AND feel the looming pressure to earn a living, your heart grows more vulnerable to lies. Believing lies leads to anxiety, discouragement, hopelessness, and depression. Keeping your heart from embracing lies should be one of your highest goals in a job hunt.
Unfortunately, your job hunt isn’t the only hunt in progress. You can count on the devil to prey on your vulnerabilities. 1 Peter 5:8 warns, “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” In my experience as a job seeker and in praying for other job seekers, the devil usually attacks with lies about the job seeker’s identity, skills, talents, and performance. He also attacks with lies that call God’s good character into question—just like he did in his apple-eating, heart-wounding conversation with Eve.
Proverbs 4:23 advises, “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.” Your heart is a vessel wonderfully created to overflow with life from Jesus. Your heart is valuable.
Keep your heart close to Jesus—“the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). As your heart becomes drained from job hunting, Jesus is the spring of life your heart needs.
Keep your heart by being mindful of your conversation with yourself. On those days when you doubt your abilities, feel you’re not good enough, beat yourself up for not performing your best in an interview, or question God’s goodness, push aside your feelings for a minute, and consider the possibility that…you’re wrestling with a lie.
Keep your heart by not engaging in conversation with the devil. Instead, “destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5).
Keep your heart by engaging with God’s Word daily. “God’s word is living and active” (Hebrews 4:12). Knowing God’s Word, His Truth, equips you to recognize lies while the Holy Spirit—the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father—empowers you to reject lies (John 15:26).
Keep your heart by engaging in conversation with God. Let your heart be more open to God than to lies! “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee” (James 4:7). “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6-7).
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When God thinks about your right fit in a job, He views your work with eternity in mind.
Job search with eternity in mind
When you think of a having a job, it’s natural to think about it in earthly terms—of having food on the table, a roof overhead, clothes on your back. God’s Word reminds you that God’s got your eternal and earthly needs covered!
“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?
But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6:25-27, 33).
When you think of finding the right job fit, it’s easy to think of holding an impressive job title, moving up the corporate ladder, getting an office with a view, and making money to spend. However, when God thinks about your right fit in a job, He views your work with eternity in mind—
How you’ll glorify Him through your work.
How He’ll use your work to help you grow closer to Him and prepare you for eternity with Him.
How you’ll share His love with your coworkers and clients.
How you’ll carry out the Great Commission.
God has given you an eternally-focused job description: “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ” (Colossians 3:23-24). The job you’ll have one day AND the work you do today to find that job hold eternal significance!
Consider yourself launched out by God!
Several years ago when God led me to leave an organization I had worked at for over a decade, I learned the concept of “being launched out” from my mentor, Michelle. She told me, “You’ve been launched out by God. When believers leave the familiar and step into the unknown to find a job, I think of them as missionaries. God is sending them out. They will take what they’ve learned about Him at church and in their quiet times with Him and share those things in their next job.”
Friend, you’ve been launched out by God!
No matter whether you were let go from your job, fired, or it’s time to find a new job, you’ve been launched out by a sovereign God.
You’ve been launched out with God-glorifying, eternal purpose.
Launching you out has always been a part of God’s Plan!
Jesus speaking to His disciples: “All Authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:18-20).
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God has launched you out—God’s good plans for you have been set into motion!
Celebrate your launch!
Friend, your launch calls for celebration! God has launched you out—God’s good plans for you have been set into motion! Through you, God is carrying the greatest message—the Gospel—into a world and workplace to help people and impact lives eternally! It’s exciting to think that God is moving in your life! What an honor that He wants to use you to glorify Him and bless others!
Celebrate that one day—in God’s perfect timing—you’ll land in the workplace He has been preparing for you. Until then, enjoy your flight! God has turned a daunting job search into a faith journey!
A new beginning is coming!
The sun will rise to greet you with a brighter day.
The God of new beginnings—He has gone before you, preparing a soft place to land.
He has gone after you, binding up your wounds, healing to come…
He goes with you, leading you into the light…
To a new day, a new calling, your heart renewed in newfound depths of His love.
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Pray for Open Doors and Closed Doors
When God launched me out several years and I was struggling to figure out my next step, my life coach, Nancy, shared profound wisdom. She said, “The answer lies in your heart.”
The Holy Spirit—the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father—lives in those who belong to Jesus. God knew exactly where I was heading. “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD” (Proverbs 16:33). If I kept my heart close Jesus and open to the Holy Spirit’s leading, then I would land where God wanted me more easily than if I relied on my own thoughts to guide me. “Trust in the LORD, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:3-4).
These revelations birthed a powerful prayer! I asked God to provide Open Doors and Closed Doors—clear signs of when He wanted me to walk through or walk past opportunities discovered in my job search. I asked God to empower me, by His Spirit, to walk confidently past closed doors and walk boldly through open doors. When I received a “No” to getting a job interview, I saw that as a Closed Door—a clear sign that it wasn’t God’s Will and to keep moving forward. Because God used this prayer to enrich my faith journey, I encourage you to pray it, too!
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Heavenly Father,
I praise You, for You are a faithful God—true to Your promises. You are loving and loyal to Your people.
Today, I’m still a job seeker, but I’m a God Seeker first. God, I surrender myself and my job search to You. May You be glorified!
Thank You for turning my job search into a faith journey. Keep my heart close to Jesus and open to the Holy Spirit’s leading. Train me to recognize lies, strengthen me to reject lies before they hurt my heart, and empower me to walk in Your Truth.
I find hope in your Word when it says, “Trust in the LORD, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” -Psalm 37:3-4
God, You know my destination. Lead me where You want me to go. Please grant me Open Doors and Closed Doors. By Your Spirit, empower me to walk confidently past Closed Doors and walk boldly through Open Doors.
God, Thank You that You’re preparing a workplace for me. Today, I rest on Your promises and in Your eternal love. I know You’ll be faithful to see my faith journey through! On that day when I discover the job You have for me, I’ll know with all my heart that You purposefully placed me there.
On this journey, help me to share an encouraging word with everyone I meet. When people ask how my job search is going, train me to speak of Your day-to-day-faithfulness. In Jesus’ Faithful Name, Amen.
