Some of us who have been suffering the frustrations of prolonged joblessness could do well to supplement our job search with a Jōb Search. Myself included.

A job search, of course, is the pursuit of meaningful work–and the temporal resources for holding body and soul together. But a Jōb Search is the quest for meaning in life–eternal truths for both this life and the next. Questions like “What’s the point of this suffering?” and “Why me, Lord?”

These are the sorts of questions that racked the soul of Jōb in one of the most amazing books of the entire Old Testament. Many scholars believe it to be the oldest book of the Bible, including Genesis. And it is also one of the most profoundly philosophical books, whose depths could take a lifetime to plumb.

“It is not suffering as such that troubles us,” writes Eugene Peterson in his brilliant introduction to Jōb in his Bible paraphrase, The Message. “It is undeserved suffering.” He adds:

Almost all of us in our years of growing up have the experience of disobeying our parents and getting punished for it. When that discipline was connected with wrongdoing, it had a certain sense of justice to it: When we do wrong, we get punished.

One of the surprises as we get older, however, is that we come to see that there is no real correlation between the amount of wrong we commit and the amount of pain we experience. An even larger surprise is that very often there is something quite the opposite: We do right and get knocked down. We do the best we are capable of doing, and just as we are reaching out to receive our reward we are hit from the blind side and sent reeling. [Emphasis added.]

Sound familiar? It sure does to me. I subtitled my PowerPoint presentation on Back to Work! “How do we work when life doesn’t?” I’ll say it again: The search for meaningful work is really a subset of the search for meaningful life. And, yes, sometimes God allows struggles in the former as a way of getting us to deal with the latter.

Not that Jōb offers any pat formula for avoiding–or even explaining–suffering in life. No, writes Peterson: “Suffering is a mystery, and Jōb comes to respsect the mystery. In the course of facing, questioning, and respecting suffering, Jōb finds himself in an even larger mystery–the mystery of God.”

Will you go on that search with us?

If you’re like me–an Older Worker despairing of finding work–you’re far from alone. Huge numbers of us, it turns out, are being forced into early retirement. And it’s not a good thing for the economy.

I was riveted by a report I heard over the weekend on National Public Radio–“For Baby Boomers, The Job Market’s Even Worse”–for two reasons: It was by old fellow journalizer Marilyn Geewax, whom I remember from when she was a starry-eyed journalism intern in Dayton, Ohio, and who’s now NPR senior business editor.

More importantly, she was talking about me and where I live. Here’s my dilemma: A year and a half into unemployment, my chances of finding a new job look no better than they did 18 months ago. To which my wife suggested the previously unthinkable: Why not just retire?

Why not, indeed. My unemployment runs out in September, right after I turn 62 in August. The timing is attractive. It’s less than unemployment benefits, but what choice do I really have?

I said unthinkable, however, not just because early retirement comes at a high price in terms of reduced benefits, but for a far bigger reason:

I’m Not Freakin’ Ready To Retire. I’m young at heart, healthy and physically fit, and I have a killer resume from all those years of rich experience. But because of my age, I never survive the job interview.

Marilyn Geewax reported that 3 million more people filed for Social Security last year, far more than anyone expected. Huge numbers of Baby Boomers are giving up the job search in favor of early retirement, she said.

Weekend Edition host Liane Hansen asked if this wasn’t a good thing for younger workers trying to find jobs. Here’s the rest of what Marilyn had to say:

Yes, in a sense it does help that part of the economy. If you’re 30, it might sound good to get all the, you know, the 60-year-olds out of the market. Maybe you can move up a little more quickly. But in the really large sense, it’s bad for the economy because it’s very tough on the federal budget.

Typically, people in their 50s and 60s, those are supposed to be your peak earning years. That’s when you’re getting the fattest paycheck in your working life and that means you’re paying more in taxes. And those revenues are desperately needed by the U.S. Treasury. It’s not going to be good for young people if the Treasury doesn’t get that money.

So, you know, if instead of paying taxes you’re now collecting unemployment benefits and then you’re turning to your Social Security benefits, that cannot be good for the budget. So, the economy would be a lot stronger if employers would just make the effort to keep those 75 million baby boomers in the job market for as long as possible.

But it’s not just about people’s paychecks. Really, we need people’s brains, talent. In a global economy like we have, we need all the talent we can get and it’s just foolish to take all of that knowledge in people ages 55 to 70 and say, you need to be on the sidelines now. We need to find ways to keep those people engaged in the workforce.

Thanks, Marilyn. But will anybody listen?

You’ve seen the bumper sticker–”Discouragement Happens.”

Or something like that. Well, anyway, it does. If you’re trapped in a hateful job situation or in unemployment, it’s going to happen. Don’t kid yourself. Be prepared and forearmed for that patch of bumpy road.

Maybe you wake up one morning and your mojo has called in sick. You really want to get your groove back, but it’s left no forwarding address. You know there are some things you need to be doing, but somehow right now eating dirt seems a more attractive option.

Say you need to call a certain individual about a job opportunity, but you’re frozen. It’s a problem sometimes referred to as the “100-pound telephone” and the “20-pound tongue.” Right now, it’s just not going to happen.

Or say you’re a wounded healer who operates a Web site to help other jobless folks–who don’t visit your site and don’t buy your book. It’s very hard to fill another person’s cup when your own has gone bone dry. You hit the wall. (Has it really been two weeks since my last post?)

There can be a variety of triggers. There’s the cumulative stress and fatigue of long-term unemployment, for one. Several years ago I experienced a catastrophic energy drain in West Africa, where after just a few days the heat and humidity reduced me to a zombie-like state of total torpor. It was almost too much effort to move, despite the work that needed to be done.

Or it might be an acute situation–like the sudden realization that the reason job opportunities keep slipping through your fingers at the interview stage has far less to do with your interviewing skills than it does the fact that you’re an Older Worker. The blood in your gut turns to ice with the realization that at your age that layoff was the Kiss of Death. There may not be another chance.

OK. This is, yes, semi-autobiographical. If you’re walking a valley like that now, I’m right there with you. The question is what do we do with it? Of course, we trust God for His provision. That goes without saying.

But after nearly a year and half of that, I am reaching the stage of enervation and discouragement. That’s just being honest and realistic. I don’t want to reach the point psychologically that I experienced physiologically in West Africa. By then it’s too late.

Here’s what I’m considering: Naming names. I have alluded to the age discrimination I experienced at the hands of my last employer, but I have not named them. I have alluded to age discrimination on the part of prospective employers who lose interest in me after I show up for the interview with gray hair. But I have not named them.

This may change. My wife disagrees. She says that’s too much negative energy, too little faith. I’m not so sure. Because there’s another factor: It’s called right and wrong. What’s going on too many times in America right now with older Americans is just plain wrong. And to remain silent about it would also be wrong.

What do you think?

OK. I’ll go first. My name is Steve, and I have a problem.

I’ve become dependent on government assistance. I just found out that my unemployment compensation, which I had expected to run out next month, is now extended into September. Four more months to become even more deeply ensnared in Acquired Helpless Syndrome, which some people (like conservative talk radio hosts) believe is a virtual conspiracy to create a permanent socialist-minded under-class.

I even had a brother lean across the table at lunch recently and tell me, “I think socialized medicine is a good thing.” I nearly choked on my chimichanga. In context, he might as well have told me that medical marijuana and man-boy love relations were a good thing. It was that shocking.

Now I fear absorption into something where resistance is futile, like so many other things. My loving family has become so concerned about my litany of complaints –”frustration failure & defeat”–that they conducted a mini-intervention on Easter, right after Sunday dinner. Talk about taking advantage of a fellow’s weakness. But I did have to admit that I might be setting myself up for self-fulfilling (negative) prophecies.

Good Friday was also memorable. Our church’s service involved foot washing. When it was my turn, my wife joked that she hoped I didn’t have holes in my socks. I said, “No, just in my shoes.” I stuck my finger though a hole, and people laughed. Let’s just say they looked like Crocs, but weren’t supposed to.

Three days later, one of the guys took me over to Kohl’s and bought me two pairs of shoes. He didn’t think the associate pastor should be walking around with holes in his shoes. When the church reaches out like that, it just gives you a good feeling about things–the way it ought to be, brother helping brother (instead of Big Brother managing our lives).

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: When we complain about big government, we’re really pointing a finger at all of us in the church. If the public sector is doing too much, it’s in large measure because the private sector is doing far too little. Shame on us. Let’s fix that.

I’ll definitely have more to say on this subject in the days ahead.

“How many times are they going to keep saying that?” I heard myself mutter this morning after being told for the umpteenth time that economic recovery was just around the corner. Again.

The fact that these assurances are coming from the same partisans who just a year or two ago were talking down the economy when a different party was in power makes me more than a little suspicious. It seems like we’ve been turning that proverbial corner for over a year now, and all that we find is another corner.

If the numbers mean anything, this vaunted recovery could still be a year or two away–if then. Let’s look at some real numbers:

The good folks at CalculatedRisk have gone to the trouble of putting unemployment numbers from the current as well as prior recessions into a graphic format, where they’re not just intelligible; they’re downright dramatic.

This graph shows the typical inverted bell curve of downturn and recovery from 11 different recessions. What jumps out, of course, is how much deeper is the current Great Recession in terms of employment.

You can also see that the deeper the downturn, usually the longer the recovery. Not always–the 2001 recession being one exception–but the trend is there. Not to mention that it also just kind of stands to reason.

Now, when those recessions are aligned at their nadir–i.e., where they bottom out–another trend appears. This bottom is roughly the halfway mark of the cycle, which is the reason I called it an inverted bell curve.

The implications? When the day comes that we can finish drawing the other half of our current cycle on the graph, it looks like we’re going to be 20 to 24 months farther down the road. Oh sure, other parts of the economy may get there faster. But remember, employment is a lagging indicator. You don’t get eggs before you get the chicken, as Dan Rather might say.

But there’s a catch: These are only trends–pretty impressive and remarkable trends. But there’s really nothing to say this cycle has to follow the traditional course.

Say Congress spends hundreds of billions of dollars to jump start the economy and save or create millions of new jobs. Oh, wait. They already did that.

OK, say 10 percent unemployment becomes the New Normal. Then what happens? The red line stays right where it is.

If you’ve been to Back to Work more than once or twice, you may already know that’s where my money is. I’m a bear and a believer in the New Normal. I believe much of the massive job loss we’ve experienced–including my own–may not be so temporary after all.

And I hope and pray I’m wrong. Meanwhile, we need to be preparing for the possibility I’m not.

If you don’t find a decent job in the next 18 months to two years, do you have a Plan B? If not, I strongly recommend you get one. And come back to Back to Work. Plans Bs Are Us.

I’d like to introduce my friends here to a couple of great resources that I think you’ll like. Both are highly recommended for people of faith who like to think. (May your tribe increase.)

The first is Active Christian Media. I commend it here not just because Stacy Harp is my friend, though she is. We became friends through our mutual interest in blogging. Nor is it just because yours truly is featured there right now, though I am.

Most importantly, it’s a great 21st century new media resource designed around new books and podcasting. Stacy is a vivacious, slightly outside-the-box interviewer who manages to turn author interviews into a laid-back listening experience. You feel like you’re sitting in the author’s front room, sipping tea and chatting.

Wednesday I was the author, and Back to Work! was the book. It was a good conversation, running about 50 minutes. Go ahead, check out the podcast. The format allowed me to get a bit more personal than I’ve been able to do in more formal radio interviews. I enjoyed it.

The second resource has little to do with unemployment and the job search, but for this presumption of mine: The search for meaningful work is a subset of the search for meaning in life, which is at root a theological/spiritual issue.

And when it comes to such issues, I know of no person more thoughtful and articulate than Pastor Kjell Axel Johanson. Kjell (pronounced “Shell”) is the pastor of an Evangelical Free Church in Stockholm, Sweden. I’m so pleased that we’ve been able to re-connect through blogging.

I met him several years ago over lunch in downtown Stockholm at a place improbably called the World Trade Center near the train station. I was doing a story about the collision of preachers with Sweden’s ultra-liberal hate crimes laws. Some state church (Swedish Lutheran) pastors were rebelling at the requirement that they perform nuptials for same-sex couples.

I asked him for his personal take on all that, and he responded more positively than I expected. Swedes are noted for their thoughtfulness, and Kjell Axel rose to the occasion. He told me that in the long view these things could represent a positive development, that there probably needs to be a shake-out among churches willing to follow God despite the cost if there’s any hope of returning to first-century-type faith.

I am so glad he’s blogging. I think you’ll find his posts among the more deeply thought-provoking things around these days in a world of instant but shallow communication.

Life is full of surprises. Like going to work one day and being told your services are no longer required.

Most of us prefer a little more predictability in our affairs. We even come to demand that events follow a prescribed course, and when things stray from the script, we become angry and frustrated.

As British writer Samuel Butler was quoted as saying in the nineteenth century: “Life is like giving a concert on the violin while learning to play the instrument.” Much more recently, American author Saul Bellow likened it to “concertizing and practicing scales at the same time.”

Our feelings may get the better of us. Neil Anderson says we are responsible for our thinking and our beliefs.

“You are not shaped as much by your environment as you are by your perception of your environment,” he wrote in Victory over the Darkness. “If what you believe does not reflect truth, then what you feel does not reflect reality. . . . Remember: Your emotions are a product of how you perceived the event, not the event itself.”

What if you chose to perceive your joblessness as an opportunity for character building? Child psychologists talk about maturity in terms of “frustration tolerance” in everyday life. When I measure myself by that gauge, I shudder.

Ornithologists tell of the value of struggle in the birth of a bird. If the egg is punctured to “help” along the process, the hatchling is less likely to survive, failing to develop the requisite strength through the struggle of the birth process. The suggestion is not just that adversity and struggle are a normal part of life, but that they may be essential to life.

I recognize that this is not a  popular view today, but I believe it’s an important perspective for those wounded in the economic theater.

Speaker and author Tim Hansel described this perspective well in his book, You Gotta Keep Dancin’:

The big dream in our society is that if we work hard enough, we will eventually be able to experience a life without limitations or difficulties. It is also one of the biggest sources of friction in our society, creating disappointment, unnecessary suffering, and missed opportunities to live a full life. Some people spend their entire life waiting for that which will never, and can never, happen. . . . One of the greatest  tragedies of our modern civilization is that you and I can live a trivial life and get away with it. One of the great advantages of pain and suffering is that it forces us to break through our superficial crusts to discover life on a deeper and more meaningful level.

Another advantage of disadvantages is that we have the opportunity to be transformed by our suffering. Here is a question worth pondering: When it comes right down to it, is there any such thing as true earthly security? I think not. And I believe the reason is to turn our hearts toward eternal things. To quote the world’s greatest Teacher:

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also (Matthew 6:19–21).

What are treasures in heaven? In work/life terms, I would  suggest they include Bolles’s triad of finding God, making the world a better place, and exercising your gift in your life mission.

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Our professional researcher for the Back to Work! book project, Steve Kipp, had this to share about what it means to be a life-giver:

Steve Kipp

This is a marvelous time to become a people-investment person—and to really mean it. Don’t get lost in the temptation only to network because of the eventual “boomerang” effect upon yourself in landing a future job.

We need to ask ourselves as we network, what’s the difference between Christian job searchers networking and the rest of the world? Do we take it seriously that it’s better to give than receive?

As we search for jobs, are we mindful of others’ qualifications and specific job types and do we forward them leads we have? Do we practice Galatians 6:10—“do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers”—both as networkers and as people in positions to hire?

Use a multi-faceted job search approach. Don’t rely upon single methods, and curb over-reliance on want ads, online posted notices, job boards, and job fairs. Develop an all-out “new media” approach—business cards to hand out at networking events and job fairs; a brochure about yourself; offer your networking “teammates” Web link opportunities, etc., to show you are a team player; aWeb site blog page or promotional page about who you are, your accomplishments, your vision, etc.

Beware the self-help gurus. Some of their message is based upon visualization techniques, “awakening your dream” as if you were a New Age realization adherent. These gurus focus on reinventing yourself using human potential movement, self-ist and/or New Age principles. Unfortunately, these overwhelm the Borders and Amazon and Barnes & Noble shelves.

Too many hungry job seekers, in trying to “reinvent” themselves or recover a lost identity or damaged self-esteem, embrace these self-help gurus’ suggestions uncritically. These advisers too often teach unrealistic positive thinking, failing to take into account economic realities. In the process they promote self-actualization and “it’s all about me”—the same kind of thinking that motivates thousands of wannabe American Idols to audition with no real chance of success.

And they encourage excessive self-absorption. Yes, unemployed job seekers need to take serious inventory of their strengths and weaknesses. But who does the vocational “calling”? You? Or God?

Often, our “ministry” has more to do with our co-workers than the actual job we’re doing. We need to continue to hear God’s voice through prayer, people, circumstances, divine appointments, etc.

Authors Dan Miller, John Maxwell, Bob Buford, and others all have some excellent things to say about using this opportunity to focus on significance (impact upon others), meaning, satisfaction, and fulfillment. This comes out best through serving others and being preserving salt and expressive light in the world, moving away from always attempting to attach a legalistic paycheck compensation to all of our service.

Even when we land a job, don’t forget the people we met while networking, especially those outside of Christ. They need encouraging, gospel-focused, Word-based follow-up—and just plain friendship, especially those still looking.
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We all know life-takers–people who impoverish our lives by their negative energy. These are often family and friends we’re kind of stuck with. Obviously, given a choice, we should seek relationships with life-givers, especially when we’re already in a vulnerable situation like unemployment.

To last week’s post on the subject, Tom D. turned the tables and asked how can WE become the life-givers for others. That’s a great question, and I applaud Tom for asking it. Let’s be honest: For most of us m0st of the time, our default mode is WIIFM–What’s In It For Me?

I’ve given this some thought and concluded that it is the on-ramp to a profound life principle. Let me illustrate:

In ancient times wise men throughout Eastern religions and Greek and Roman philosophies agreed on a principle of human conduct that was expressed in Rabbinic Judaism (Hillel) thus: “What is hateful to yourself do not do to someone else.”

Sound familiar? Yes, it’s the Golden Rule, which started out as a negative imperative–thou shalt not. Then along came Jesus Christ, who took it a step further into a positive imperative: “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets” (Matt. 7:12 NIV).

Humble yourself, and you shall be lifted up. Give, and you shall receive. Etc. Truths so counter-intuitive that they could only come by revelation, and we have to work at grasping their depths.

So, what’s the application for the job search? There’s a lot here to consider. For now, I’ll leave it with the wise words of my friend and career coach Gary Hansen of Inspired Calling:

Let me ask you a key question, “Can your job search actually include serving God’s Kingdom?” The answer is yes, in fact, it must.

STOP asking people, “Can you help me?” or “Can you do me a favor and call …?”

START networking God’s way and simply ask people, “How can I help you?” or “How can I pray for you?” The truth is you can help every single person you meet.

What do you think? Does that provoke some thoughts of your own? It should. We’ll have some more to say about this, too.

You think you’ve got stress? Try dodging bullets for a living.

Concerned about an upsurge in suicides in the past year or two, the Army retained the services of an expert to help devise a response. Dr. Thomas Joiner, a professor of psychology at Florida State University, has done some of the most cutting-edge research on the subject in recent years. Joiner, whose own father committed suicide, has created a new model of behavioral theory that the Army is weighing. It involves three prime components:

1. Loneliness–a sense of isolation.

2. Worthlessness–the feeling of being a burden.

3. Fearlessness–one’s ability to overcome the natural fear of death.

Obviously, No. 3 is integral to being trained for warfare and not optional. So, the Army is looking to ways of combating and reducing the first two. These include building close-knit teams to ensure that soldiers never feel alone and giving troops a sense of purpose that increases their self-worth.

In my presentations I’ve added “Hopelessness” to the list. That’s for us civilians who might not be able to relate to Fearlessness. Not that it doesn’t happen. Joiner and other experts have found that fearlessness increases with age. As one doctor put it, “As people age, they are also more likely to develop (based on various life experiences) the fearlessness which transforms the simple desire for death into a plan for action.”

Work ever harder at maintaining and building your personal network. Seek “close-knit” relationships and activities that give you a sense of purpose.

There are some proactive things we can and must do to avoid some of these emotional pitfalls. And some of them require being very intentional because they’re counter to our natural impulses.
One of them is Resist isolation and relational deprivation. Fight the natural impulse to withdraw. Sometimes that means serving others and thereby increasing your own self-esteem.

Look to see how “the present is perfect.” This is a secular concept I learned in a professional coaching program that has such spiritual implications. The question you need to ask is if God really is in control, why is this situation good for me? Ultimately, every experience for believers is allowed as a means toward conforming our character to the image of Christ. But if you take the time to inquire, you’re likely to get even more specific answers.

I asked God, for example, why I kept getting beaten up in ministry. The answer I got was if you’re going to be a culture warrior, you have to toughen up. Ouch.

Seek out life-givers. Those are people we especially need to pursue relationship with. You’ve heard the saying, “You can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your relatives.?” And have you heard about the person who walks into the room and the lights dim? Choose friendships with people who brighten the room when they enter.

You need that. Choose life–and life-givers.