I was unemployed and not getting anywhere with my job search. So I did what any person would do under the circumstances—I decided to hang pictures!

Let me back up for a minute.

Near the end of November 2001, my company's HR manager dropped by my office and asked me to "take a walk" with her down the hall. Silly me—I should have known what that meant. I saw a large envelope on the table with my name on it, the CFO who wouldn't meet my eye, and I got that "Oh, no!" feeling in the pit of my stomach. Yep, I was being — as a friend puts it—"uninstalled."

I knew the drill—which included prayer.

I can't say I was happy about losing my job. But I wasn't especially worried either—I'd successfully looked for work before and I knew the drill—which included prayer. As before, I bought lists of headhunters and companies and started working on a mailing. I also started to devote a good chunk of my mornings to prayer and to studying Science and Health.

Even though I was now jobless, things could have been much worse. With property, investment, inheritance and unemployment income, my family and I had more cash on hand than we'd ever had before. I felt that God had prepared us for a period of no income—and I was grateful, though it didn't stop me from wanting a new job.

I sent out several thousand letters.

Over a period of several months, my wife Kristen and I sent out several thousand letters to companies and headhunters. Each time I sat back and waited for the phone to ring. In the past, responses had started coming in as early as the next day, but not this time.

My initial optimism started to fade. It occurred to me that maybe I wouldn't find another job. After all, the economy was in shreds and I was 50—older than the CEOs of the last couple of high tech companies I'd worked for.

I wasn't sure what to do next. Should I conserve my money—expecting a long period of unemployment—or work with a professional career counselor, who might help me find work faster?

It was at this point, with the options spinning in my head, that I decided to hang the pictures.

Though we'd moved in some time before, we'd never gotten around to this aspect of the decorating. I got all the pictures out and placed them around the walls of the family room where I could see them. As I looked at them, I saw that one would look good over the fireplace. I hung it. A couple more could go in the upstairs hallway. I hung them. There were spots in our bedroom and the guest room for others. One by one, without worrying about what would come next, I found places for all the pictures. I just did what seemed to be the best thing I could at the moment. And in the end, the pictures looked great.

This is sometimes how God directs me.

It dawned on me that this is sometimes how God directs me—a step at a time. I didn't have to know what the ending was going to be. I felt ready to take the next step and I knew God would continue to lead me. With that, I picked up the phone and called a career counselor, gave him my credit card number and arranged to work with him.

Over the next couple of months, I worked closely with the counselor. He forced me to think about what I was good at and what I wanted to do. He drilled me on being able to articulate what I was learning about myself.

In my spiritual workout for the day, I would grab on to an idea that made sense to me. My confidence in God was growing steadily, step-by-step, bit by bit, just like getting those paintings hung.

As I progressed, I realized that a deep sense of inadequacy about my field—internet security, work I'd been doing for the past several years—was making me somewhat dishonest in my approach to looking for work. I don't mean that I falsified information on my resume or anything like that. It was more a matter of applying for jobs that I knew weren't right, hoping that I'd somehow get the job and fool the company into thinking I knew what I was doing. This feeling of unworthiness also made it difficult for me to acknowledge my successes. I'd talk about my accomplishments in interviews, but without much conviction.

I was learning to judge my worth on a different scale.

My whole outlook changed when I finally realized what really mattered was that God had already honored me beyond measure by creating me as His child. No job could compete with that honor. Through this process I was learning to judge my worth on a different scale. I felt much more at peace.

I began to joke with friends that I'd been focusing on the wrong problem. Being without a job was great—what I needed was income. I was very happy not having a job.

I revised the letter I'd been sending out, making it a more honest a representation of who I am. We sat down to another round of printing, stuffing, stamping, sealing—and sent out about 4,000 letters to the same companies we'd mailed to in February.

I got only one response—but I only needed one.

That one response to the mailing of 4,000 letters brought me several consulting projects (with more to come). We are discussing a full-time position with them for some time next year. The work I'm doing for them uses almost all of the skills that I've developed over my entire career.

The step-by-step, do-what-God-is-telling-you-to-do-every-step-of-the-way approach worked. It's shaping up to be the best job I've ever had.