I realize the title is pompous sounding, but take a deep breath and think of some of your friends who have gone through an agonizing job search. Or perhaps it was you. I’m talking about the job-search campaign that lasts many months, or years, and takes you through over a dozen interviews, painstakingly prepared for, several of which had you among the finalists in the second or third round. And then after each one, silence, or the corporate “Dear John” letter that announces they just found a better catch and you are being ditched.

This soul-numbing process intersects with the “meaning of life” when we reach that Alfie-like moment and wonder, “What’s it all about?” I’ve heard it expressed by several clients who I’ve met at the Career Transitions Center of Chicago, and others who were referred to me by friends.

One of these referrals is an attractive, smart, strategic-thinking woman who has gone through the high-hopes-and-dashed-hopes hell of job search. I’ve met with her twice and this second time she said, “You know what. I am just tired. Tired of it all.” Her angry, frustrated tone said it all. And then she added, “Every one keeps telling me how skilled and gifted I am. If that’s true, then why am I not working?”

Why indeed? And why is the duration of this trial so long, so exhausting? If there is a God–and I believe there is–then what is God trying to accomplish by this? Teach us humility when we can’t sink any lower? Have us turn toward Him when this miserable time of our life is making us so angry we are turning away from Him?

It was largely for this reason that I wrote A Guide to God’s Perplexing Path. God tells us, in Scripture, that His ways and thoughts are so much higher than ours that we cannot understand them. This spiritual fact–that His Path is inscrutably higher than our own–makes His Path and, therefore, our life, perplexing. So how will we ever make sense of it? What’s it all about?

Fortunately, He left us markers delineating the Way we are to walk, and these markers reveal why His Path is so perplexing. The short answer: It is designed to be.

The Guide shows there is a purpose to this seemingly endless misery we sometimes suffer. You needn’t buy the book, because the first three chapters are posted on my website for free, and they will help you understand what this maddening, frustrating, and sometimes excruciating journey is trying to accomplish. (That said, the eBook version is only $.99 on Amazon.) Here is a link to those chapters. I hope they bring you peace if you are anxious, hope if you are depressed, and relief from the discomfort of this unsettling experience.  http://bit.ly/1lz4g4e