If You Have a Job You Don't Like - Even Hate - Try This
Do you have a job you don't like? Maybe you even hate your job. It can really wear you out, even tear you apart if you're in this situation. I've had this experience - not now, but in the past. Ideally, you can get another job. But that doesn't always work out - at least not right away. (Just remember: If you keep at it, you can find something else.)
If you're stuck for now in a job you don't like, even more so if you hate your job, here are some suggestions on how to bear up under your current situation. It's basically stuff I've learned the hard way. But for what it's worth, here goes.
First, you have to face the fact that nothing happens in this life that isn't somehow in God's plan for you. So, yes, your having this awful job somehow fits into God's plan. (By the way, that doesn't mean you sit around and just suffer; it doesn't mean you don't try to get a better job.)
So now that you know that this is part of God's plan, it's important that you get closer to Our Lord - right away. He may not let you know why He's got you stuck in this terrible job, but that's OK. You may never understand why He "did this" to you. He's got His reasons. Just get closer to Him.
Admittedly, if it seems like, in spite of your pleading, He's not listening to you, it might be hard to get closer to Him. C'mon, go with your Faith here. Your Faith should tell you that He ultimately allows us to suffer to draw us closer to Him. Remember, He wants us to spend eternity with Him and you've got to be pretty close to Him for that.
So let's say you understand this and you pray hard and you grow closer to Him and you're still stuck in your miserable job. Maybe He's trying to show you how vain all the pleasures of this world really are. Maybe He's trying to elicit acts of virtue - even heroic virtue - from you. You know that the crosses He sends wind up somehow being blessings, even when they don't seem that way while you're suffering. You know that, right? So in this present suffering you have the chance to maybe strengthen your character, or increase the virtues of patience, understanding, charity, compassion - especially for others who might be suffering too, just like you.
But still, even if you can grasp all this intellectually, even if your Faith tells you to accept suffering as a gift from God, it can still be really frustrating when, after much prayer, God doesn't even seem to hear you. It's like you're praying to a stone wall sometimes - at least that's the way it's felt to me at time. So at those times, try thinking of what's going on this way: Our Lord is closest to us when we're suffering. He carries us closest to His Sacred Heart at these critical times - maybe so close that we can't see Him.
But even if you don't "see" Him or "feel" Him, He's working on the problem. And soon enough something you read, someone you meet, something someone says - something at some point will cut through and provide that spark of light you need in the darkness that surrounds you when you're in the midst of a bad situation. You may already have experienced this sort of thing. That spark is Our Lord working through others. You can't see Him because He's holding you close, but you can, you will see the spark at some point.
So don't blow your chance to grow closer to God in your suffering. I know it's easy for me to say right now - now that I'm not particularly suffering. But I've been there in the past and I'll try to remember my own advice the next time suffering comes my way, as I know it will.
Meanwhile, I hope this has been helpful to you.
If you're stuck for now in a job you don't like, even more so if you hate your job, here are some suggestions on how to bear up under your current situation. It's basically stuff I've learned the hard way. But for what it's worth, here goes.
First, you have to face the fact that nothing happens in this life that isn't somehow in God's plan for you. So, yes, your having this awful job somehow fits into God's plan. (By the way, that doesn't mean you sit around and just suffer; it doesn't mean you don't try to get a better job.)
So now that you know that this is part of God's plan, it's important that you get closer to Our Lord - right away. He may not let you know why He's got you stuck in this terrible job, but that's OK. You may never understand why He "did this" to you. He's got His reasons. Just get closer to Him.
Admittedly, if it seems like, in spite of your pleading, He's not listening to you, it might be hard to get closer to Him. C'mon, go with your Faith here. Your Faith should tell you that He ultimately allows us to suffer to draw us closer to Him. Remember, He wants us to spend eternity with Him and you've got to be pretty close to Him for that.
So let's say you understand this and you pray hard and you grow closer to Him and you're still stuck in your miserable job. Maybe He's trying to show you how vain all the pleasures of this world really are. Maybe He's trying to elicit acts of virtue - even heroic virtue - from you. You know that the crosses He sends wind up somehow being blessings, even when they don't seem that way while you're suffering. You know that, right? So in this present suffering you have the chance to maybe strengthen your character, or increase the virtues of patience, understanding, charity, compassion - especially for others who might be suffering too, just like you.
But still, even if you can grasp all this intellectually, even if your Faith tells you to accept suffering as a gift from God, it can still be really frustrating when, after much prayer, God doesn't even seem to hear you. It's like you're praying to a stone wall sometimes - at least that's the way it's felt to me at time. So at those times, try thinking of what's going on this way: Our Lord is closest to us when we're suffering. He carries us closest to His Sacred Heart at these critical times - maybe so close that we can't see Him.
But even if you don't "see" Him or "feel" Him, He's working on the problem. And soon enough something you read, someone you meet, something someone says - something at some point will cut through and provide that spark of light you need in the darkness that surrounds you when you're in the midst of a bad situation. You may already have experienced this sort of thing. That spark is Our Lord working through others. You can't see Him because He's holding you close, but you can, you will see the spark at some point.
So don't blow your chance to grow closer to God in your suffering. I know it's easy for me to say right now - now that I'm not particularly suffering. But I've been there in the past and I'll try to remember my own advice the next time suffering comes my way, as I know it will.
Meanwhile, I hope this has been helpful to you.
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