Job 10

Ah, a cup of strong coffee in the morning. Or, a cup of peppermint tea to warm the heart after dinner in the evening. A glass of wine with friends, where the laughter and conversation is more heady than the wine. A good book on a quiet afternoon. Just a little cheer before I go. Comforts are the good parts in life, the small, joyful habits that settle our souls. Life would be bleak without the comforts we love so well.

Job asks for space to have a little cheer before he goes. Life is hard enough; let me have some peace and comfort before I die. But first, he wishes for death. He lashes out – no holding back on his feelings. He’s pouring his heart out before God – all the anger, bitterness, questions, the hurt and the doubt.

A quick thought: God already knows. I can safely tell Him. Nothing I say is going to surprise Him. Let God banish secret sins and shameful thoughts with His truth. The broken heart can be laid in pieces before Him. He mends broken things. Why do we pretend? He knows. All of it. If I stay silent, will my bones waste away from the inner turmoil (Psalm 32)? Pouring my heart out to God reminds me that I trust Him. He is my refuge (Psalm 62:8). And, there is safety from temptation when I take my unrighteous thoughts captive and obediently turn them over to Christ (II Corinthians 10:3-6).

“I loathe my life; I will give free utterance to my complaint; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul. I will say to God, ‘Do not condemn me; let me know why you contend against me.'”

Job 10:1-2

“I hate my life!” I have heard these same words come out of my own lips. The teenage years were especially difficult. These are real feelings – enormous, overwhelming, valid and important. Deep heartbreak can drive me to Jesus quicker than an easy road can. I spent many hours in prayer as an angsty teenager. I’m still quick to run to Him in stormy weather. I often feel like that sixteen year old girl with a broken heart. Jesus tells us to come to Him when we are tired and worn-out, overwhelmed by the load we are carrying. He promises real rest for our souls.

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Matthew 11:28-30

But Job is buried deep under a monstrous load of suffering. He feels there is no escape from it. He suspects that God has done all of this on purpose – a purpose he longs to know! His theology of God’s sovereignty is correct, but he questions God’s motives.

Isn’t this a common theme song? The trials we face in life can bring doubt about God’s care and goodness. We trust that He is sovereign over all, working His will in everything, yet we wonder if He loves us, or if we have become an annoying disappointment to Him. Is He who He says He is, loving and holy, kind and just? Is He good?

“Your hands fashioned and made me, and now you have destroyed me altogether. Remember that you have made me like clay; and will you return me to the dust? Did you not pour me out like milk and curdle me like cheese? You clothed me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews. You have granted me life and steadfast love, and your care has preserved my spirit. Yet these things you hid in your heart; I know that this was your purpose.”

Job 10:8-13

We know that God, who made all things for His own glory, can do whatever He wills and desires with His creation – with me and with you. He has fashioned us from dust and breathed His breath of life into us. We have purpose and meaning because, and only because of Him. Our purpose is Him, His glory, and our enjoyment of Him.

“Woe to him who strives with him who formed him, a pot among earthen pots! Does the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’ or ‘Your work has no handles.’? Woe to him who says to a father, ‘What are you begetting?’ or to a woman, ‘With what are you in labor?'”

“Thus says the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, and the one who formed him: ‘Ask me of things to come; will you command me concerning my children and the work of my hands? I made the earth and created man on it; it was my hands that stretched out the heavens, and I commanded all their host.'”

Isaiah 45:9-12

Job proclaims his own righteousness (v. 7), and then questions the goodness and justice of God who made him. This is the false thinking we drop into when we answer before we hear the whole question, or when we make a decision with half of the pertinent information missing. Job doesn’t know the whole story. He sees from a veiled perspective, earthly, human. He has made an assumption about God based on limited understanding mixed with a healthy dose of his own pride. Is he guiltless? None are.

“The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds, there is none who does good. The LORD looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one.”

Psalm 14:1-3

“as it is written: ‘None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.'”

Romans 3:10-12

Job continues his lament and complaint. If he is wrong, he feels God will not acquit him; if he is right, he feels he will still stand in shame before God. If he can stand without shame, he says God will still be against him. In short, Job believes that nothing he can do or has done will bring mercy from God. He is on his own against the Almighty. His terror is understandable! He questions the purpose of his life.

“Why did you bring me out from the womb? Would that I had died before any eye had seen me and were as though I had not been, carried from the womb to the grave. Are not my days few? Then cease, and leave me alone, that I may find a little cheer before I go – and I shall not return…”

Job 10:18-21

“I am the LORD, and there is no other, besides me there is no God; I equip you, though you do not know me, that people may know, from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is none besides me; I am the LORD, and there is no other. I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I am the LORD who does all these things.”

Isaiah 45:5-7

Job asks God to leave him alone, to just go already, and let him live out his miserable days with as much cheer as he can muster.

There is no cheer where God is not. Without God’s presence there is only darkness and death. There is no coffee strong enough to bring comfort to a life lived without God. There is no wine sweet enough, no cup-of-tea-book-by-the-fire-fuzzy-socks-cozy enough. But when God is near, there is joy. Joy that strengthens and lifts up. Joy that comforts in the midst of suffering – through suffering, to the other side of suffering.

“Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge. I say to the LORD, ‘You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you.'”

“I have set the LORD always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure.”

“You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

Psalm 16:1-2, 8-9, 11