 “I loathe my life;
I will give free utterance to my complaint; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul. 2 I will say to God, Do not condemn me; let me know why you contend against me. 3 Does it seem good to you to oppress, to despise the work of your hands and favor the designs of the wicked? 4 Have you eyes of flesh? Do you see as man sees? 5 Are your days as the days of man, or your years as a man's years, 6 that you seek out my iniquity and search for my sin, 7 although you know that I am not guilty, and there is none to deliver out of your hand? 8 Your hands fashioned and made me, and now you have destroyed me altogether. 9 Remember that you have made me like clay; and will you return me to the dust? 10 Did you not pour me out like milk and curdle me like cheese? 11 You clothed me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews. 12 You have granted me life and steadfast love, and your care has preserved my spirit. 13 Yet these things you hid in your heart; I know that this was your purpose. 14 If I sin, you watch me and do not acquit me of my iniquity. 15 If I am guilty, woe to me! If I am in the right, I cannot lift up my head, for I am filled with disgrace and look on my affliction. 16 And were my head lifted up, you would hunt me like a lion and again work wonders against me. 17 You renew your witnesses against me and increase your vexation toward me; you bring fresh troops against me. 18 “Why did you bring me out from the womb? Would that I had died before any eye had seen me 19 and were as though I had not been, carried from the womb to the grave. 20 Are not my days few? Then cease, and leave me alone, that I may find a little cheer 21 before I go—and I shall not return-- to the land of darkness and deep shadow, 22 the land of gloom like thick darkness, like deep shadow without any order, where light is as thick darkness.” Meditation God’s steadfast love is strong enough to sustain our toughest questions. Bringing your tough questions to God is a sign of faith in God, trusting Him to engage you as you walk through the valley of the shadow of death. Job’s lament deepens with different facets of his ultimate question, “Why?” Job’s questioning of God reveals an active relationship with God, part of a journey rather than a termination of relationship. Job’s agony is articulated in four questions that God does not (yet) answer: “Let me know why you contend against me!?” (1-3) Job sees his suffering as an act of aggression from God and is dealing with God directly. “Why do you see me!?” (4-7) This earlier theme of Job’s grappling with God (chapter 7) continues as a thorn in Job’s thinking, oppressive observation from an omnipotent God who could stop suffering with one word. “Why did you bring me from the womb?” (8-17) The exalted language of God’s intimacy revealed in conception is matched with Job’s depth of devastation from suffering. Job feels it would have been better to be stillborn than to be born at all. “Are not my days few, anyway?!” (18-22) This is to say, why do you not go ahead and kill me? The God of life is assaulted by Job with anti-life and anti-creation language. Job’s intense questioning of God reveals real relationship with God and the faithful character of God. Suffering and struggle are real, but so is God’s steadfast love. And He is strong enough for our most difficult questions. Richly Dwelling -Which questions do you identify with most? Why? -Where do you turn other than God when you are questioning the struggles and suffering of life in a fallen world? -Jesus identifies with us in our questions, asking the Father why He turned His face away. But Jesus suffered ultimately to death so those of us who wish we were dead can have access to God’s steadfast love through our Savior. How can you anchor your hope in the finished work of Jesus by being more honest with God in prayer? Key Verse 18 “Why did you bring me out from the womb? Would that I had died before any eye had seen me Comments are closed.
|