The truth about the job search is this: it may be the hardest thing I’ve done yet. Sometimes, the actual process of applying and throwing yourself and your ideas out on the line is hard, but really, it’s the accompaning mental and emotional drain that are most vicious.

I talk a lot about dreams on this blog, not just small ones, but big, magnificent, leaping ones that unfortunately for you, are not complete without my overuse of soaring, grandiose language. Sometimes when I consider all this dream talk, I wonder if my own dreams are just products of my generation. Millennials have been told to believe anything is possible and that with our minds put to the task, we can do it all. But is it really true? Are these dreams a possible glance into the future or implausible, childish and foolishly whistful?

Certainly, I believe in a God for whom nothing is impossible and that this very same God is willing to work through me. And I am moved in the quiet moments, when I’m alone and my heart can wake up and ideas can surge, to believe in the possibility that my dreams are in fact ideas that God has planted in my head and heart. And in those moments, when the language swells up to soaring longitudes, that overuse of grandiose language is the best my soul can do to express a feeling deep and right, not of me, but of Him.

This past weekend, I thought back over what I want to do and key moments when I know God has spoken clearly to me and I am resigned to hold fast to believe in the talents and passions he has given me.

So as the job search continues, the questions become do I dig my heels in and wait on what I know I can do? What I dream of doing? Is it even coming? Sometimes I think, kid, you went to Paris for a year and a half – that’s your big thing in this life. And it’s over – so stop expecting mountains and adventures. But when I go back to God and let my mind wander towards the future, my mind and heart start to burn, and then race towards people whose faces I can’t yet quite see, backgrounds that are still a little fuzzy. When I’m still and honest, I realize that I want to go.

Part of me fears that if I give in to the doubt that I’ll never get the kind of job I dream about and as a result take just some job, I’ll be taking the most convenient, available option and be skipping out on the fuller, God devised plan. Giving in too early may mean selling my purpose short. And to be honest, lately, I’ve been wondering if part of the reason I’m not married yet is because I’m suppose to push myself into this pursuit? There must be a reason I’m here, unattached and unfettered. I turn and look down those crazy roads and wonder should I? Could I? A near replication of the first few prickling thoughts I entertained of Paris.

Last week I realized that at this time two years ago, I hadn’t even fully applied to graduate school….yet in October 2010, I was accepted and January 8^th, my plane touched down in Paris. A reminder that a lot can happen in a few months. I need to remember that.

But then come the days, home alone just me and the computer screen. Job listings, emails, resumes and cover letter attachments, hopeful clickings of the send button and then the silence and waiting.

In thinking of an allusion to explain how this feels, I pictured a cliff. To me, all of this feels like standing on a cliff that overlooks a coastline. You’re straining with every particle of being to see the boat that is coming for you – that  job that you know is somewhere out there, but still out of sight. The days of insecurity and the moments of fear come like winds and earthquakes trying to knock you off your feet, down the cliff and away from your lookout post. The fears that the boat is never coming and the doubts that you’ll never be able to get on the boat are a tag team working to get you far away from your post so that when the boat does come, you’ll miss it because you’ve given up hope.  As I was conjuring this image, I also remembered one of my favorite stories of the Bible. It’s a moment in the life of Elijah, an Old Testament prophet through whom God has just performed incredible feats. Having angered the king and queen, Elijah has run for his life into the desert.

1 Kings 19: 9-13:

And the word of the Lord came to him: “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

¹⁰ He replied, “I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”

¹¹ The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.”

Then a great and powerful windtore the mountains apart and shatteredthe rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. ¹² After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. ¹³ When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.

If we want to see Jesus  move, it sometimes means waiting out difficulties and massive fears. The thoughts that our talents aren’t good enough, that our dreams aren’t going to materialize, that we don’t have what others want in a writer, a communications creative, a fill in the blank – those thoughts are not from our Creator and they’re trying to knock us down from our posts.

Quite honestly, sometimes the waiting feels like failure. The boat hasn’t come yet because I’m not good enough, dynamic enough, creative enough, bright enough. But if I’m a new creation in Christ, I’m filled with Creativity itself, Wisdom himself, the Best Friend this world has ever known. And believing that I lack these attributes, denies the truth of God’s power and how he wants to use our lives. In doing so, I also deprive myself of the grace and glory God wants to fill me with and then pour out onto others. I’m just now understanding this.

I get knocked down often – more than I’d like to admit – and every time, my tear streaked face tells the storyline simultaneously unfolding on my heart. The lies that 1) the job is not coming and 2) that Jesus can’t/won’t deliver it to me work fast. But even on those days with the wind and the earthquakes knocking me to my knees, there’s a deeper hope that resounds within and pushes me back up to wait. The Lord is coming.  Like a cool, gentle wind, He’s coming to deliver his promise and his plan. Let’s hold on tight until He does.