MOST OF US AREN’T very good at waiting. I’m certainly not. Our lives tend to be a rush—rushing here and there. We’re very proud we can “multitask,” doing more than one thing at a time. We want everything instantly, and therein lies one of the biggest challenges as you search, because things won’t happen instantly.

The waiting in the job search process will test you because you’ll do lots and lots of waiting. The good news with this waiting though, is that God wants to use it for doing good things for us.

Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him (Isaiah 30:18).

Think about it: Some things take time to turn out good. In cooking, that’s especially true. I love fudge, which we make at Christmas each year. To make exceptional fudge, you need to bring the ingredients to a rolling boil very slowly. It usually takes me a half hour to do it right and if I don’t, the sugar won’t dissolve properly, which makes grainy fudge. If you like good risotto, you can’t make it in ten minutes; it’ll take you close to a half-hour.

How about children? I have three awesome sons and four grandchildren. None of them came quickly; they all came at about nine months as planned. Two of my sons were even late by a couple of weeks. I have three beautiful daughters-in-law, but I had to wait for them too—waiting for their relationship with my sons to develop, to agree to be married, and to plan a wedding. Was all the waiting worth it for our family? Absolutely!

The job search process is full of waiting and the speed it moves isn’t dictated by you. You’ll need to wait for there to be a job opening that matches your gifts, wait for the organization to review your application and decide to interview you, wait for the day of the interview, wait for a second interview, as most organizations want to see you twice and have you meet different people in the process, wait for an offer. And if there is no offer, the process starts over somewhere else. A “no” simply means it wasn’t part of God’s plan for you, and even though you must continue to wait and it will take longer than you’d like, you can’t control making it happen more quickly.

What do we do during this waiting process? We trust in God and have faith that he will provide the right opportunity.

This week’s blog is an excerpt from How Long, O Lord, How Long? Devotions for the Unemployed and Those Who Love Them , By author Dale Kreienkamp.