Job 7:1-21
Job on His Suffering
1 “Do not mortals have hard service on earth?
Are not their days like those of hired laborers?
2 Like a slave longing for the evening shadows,
or a hired laborer waiting to be paid,
3 so I have been allotted months of futility,
and nights of misery have been assigned to me.
4 When I lie down I think, ‘How long before I get up?’
The night drags on, and I toss and turn until dawn.
5 My body is clothed with worms and scabs,
my skin is broken and festering.
6 “My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle,
and they come to an end without hope.
7 Remember, O God, that my life is but a breath;
my eyes will never see happiness again.
8 The eye that now sees me will see me no longer;
you will look for me, but I will be no more.
9 As a cloud vanishes and is gone,
so one who goes down to the grave does not return.
10 He will never come to his house again;
his place will know him no more.
11 “Therefore I will not keep silent;
I will speak out in the anguish of my spirit,
I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.
12 Am I the sea, or the monster of the deep,
that you put me under guard?
13 When I think my bed will comfort me
and my couch will ease my complaint,
14 even then you frighten me with dreams
and terrify me with visions,
15 so that I prefer strangling and death,
rather than this body of mine.
16 I despise my life; I would not live forever.
Let me alone; my days have no meaning.
17 “What is mankind that you make so much of them,
that you give them so much attention,
18 that you examine them every morning
and test them every moment?
19 Will you never look away from me,
or let me alone even for an instant?
20 If I have sinned, what have I done to you,
you who sees everything we do?
Why have you made me your target?
Have I become a burden to you?
21 Why do you not pardon my offenses
and forgive my sins?
For I will soon lie down in the dust;
you will search for me, but I will be no more.”
Job questions God throughout...Man has to work hard on earth, especially during Job's time...Physical labor was necessary...Job compares his days like that of a hired man...Man is like a slave longing for the evening shade, after a long hard days work in the hot sun...Job tells us life, is but a breath, and God then takes us...Why does He have to make life so hard?...Job says his eyes will never see happiness again...Job says his life now despises him, and he wants God to leave him alone, because his days now have no meaning...Why does God make so much of man, to give him attention, by examining him every morning and then testing him every moment?...Soon Job says he will lie down in the dust, and he will search no more, for he will be no more...Job doesn't see much good in life and the things around him now...Job did not understand suffering...And after reading Job, we might ask, is there any goodness at all in suffering?...
Job has poured his heart out to God...He questions God hard...This is good...God tells Job and us in the end that Job has spoken right, even in his pain and his complaints to God...Job in all his complaints and questions, is searching for God...He is seeking the answer to the great question, why is there suffering?...Why do I personally have to suffer?...God understands everything, even why we suffer...
Suffering can affect and come at us, is different ways and different times...When suffering affects us personally, it is different...Suffering can change our lives, if we focus on it, and remain in it...We may suffer from a loss of job, a loss of a loved one, a child's health faltering or other things that grieves us...When we have suffering over a period of time, we can think of ourselves as a victim...We may think, why me...We can lose focus on the good things, and become calloused to the world...When things are going good in our lives, suffering is tucked away in the back of our conscious and be hidden...Sometimes we don't pay much attention to any suffering around the things going on in the world, if it doesn't affect us personally...C. S. Lewis tells us, "God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains; it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world."...When we are having our good days, God is only whispering to us...But it is different when we are suffering...We may hear God better, when we are suffering...We maybe closer to God when we are suffering...Somehow God may put a little goodness in some sufferings, even though we fail to see them at the time of our personal sufferings...
Jesus teaches us much about suffering...When He was on the cross, there was great suffering by our Master...When we think about Jesus dying on the cross, He was dying for our sins...My sins are what put Him on the cross in the first place...That's what each of our sins did...Sin caused the Son of Man great suffering...Yet in the middle of all the suffering on the cross, there God is...God is, in a sense, is taking care of us and loving us (right in the middle of His Son's suffering)...God is allowing His own Son, Jesus, to pay our sin debt...Those watching Jesus dying could not see this, until after His resurrection...Jesus was doing goodness for us...He was dying for each one of us...There was even great goodness in life when Jesus died on the cross (which is hard to see)...Those who watched Him die, who could have seen any goodness...At the time of His death, what did His disciples think of His suffering death on the cross?...In all the sadness of His death, there was goodness right in the middle of His suffering...