Job 17:1-16
Job is Ill and Feeling Very Low in Spirit
1 My spirit is broken,
my days are cut short,
the grave awaits me.
2 Surely mockers surround me;
my eyes must dwell on their hostility.
3 “Give me, O God, the pledge you demand.
Who else will put up security for me?
4 You have closed their minds to understanding;
therefore you will not let them triumph.
5 If anyone denounces their friends for reward,
the eyes of their children will fail.
6 “God has made me a byword to everyone,
a man in whose face people spit.
7 My eyes have grown dim with grief;
my whole frame is but a shadow.
8 The upright are appalled at this;
the innocent are aroused against the ungodly.
9 Nevertheless, the righteous will hold to their ways,
and those with clean hands will grow stronger.
10 “But come on, all of you, try again!
I will not find a wise man among you.
11 My days have passed, my plans are shattered.
Yet the desires of my heart
12 turn night into day;
in the face of the darkness light is near.
13 If the only home I hope for is the grave,
if I spread out my bed in the realm of darkness,
14 if I say to corruption, ‘You are my father,’
and to the worm, ‘My mother’ or ‘My sister,’
15 where then is my hope—
who can see any hope for me?
16 Will it go down to the gates of death?
Will we descend together into the dust?”
Luke 7:1-10
The Faith of the Centurion
1When Jesus had finished saying all this in the hearing of the people, he entered Capernaum. 2There a centurion's servant, whom his master valued highly, was sick and about to die. 3The centurion heard of Jesus and sent some elders of the Jews to him, asking him to come and heal his servant. 4When they came to Jesus, they pleaded earnestly with him, "This man deserves to have you do this, 5because he loves our nation and has built our synagogue." 6So Jesus went with them.
He was not far from the house when the centurion sent friends to say to him: "Lord, don't trouble yourself, for I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. 7That is why I did not even consider myself worthy to come to you. But say the word, and my servant will be healed. 8For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, 'Go,' and he goes; and that one, 'Come,' and he comes. I say to my servant, 'Do this,' and he does it."
9When Jesus heard this, he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd following him, he said, "I tell you, I have not found such great faith even in Israel." 10Then the men who had been sent returned to the house and found the servant well.
Job and the centurion are men with great faith...They both are down and need the help from our Redeemer, who lives...Job is personally suffering...The centurion is suffering over his servant's health, who is about to die...Job talks a lot about his suffering, while the centurion is stoic, without feelings and says to Jesus through a friend, that he knows what authority is about, and he knows that Jesus has been given divine authority to heal others from God...He trusts in Jesus...The two remained in their faith...The two kept the faith despite grief and suffering and their personal low feelings...Job and the centurion did not have high ecstatic feelings when they are asking for help, and need God...
I have wanted to and used to link my faith with how I felt...I wanted more zeal for the LORD...If I was low, I wanted a stronger faith...I wanted an intense faith...Our feelings are always with us...And feelings are a part of our lives, a very important part of our lives...God is love, and love is the greatest of all our feelings...We know then that faith and love are connected to God...So we know that faith and feelings, in the very least co-exist...
But faith and our feelings are two separate things...What I have learned is that even though faith and our feelings are linked, they remain separate...The best example, I think one can give is that a successful atheist with a strong family of love, maybe the happiest and loving-est person you know...But he does not believe in God, and therefore has no faith...But, the better example might be a chronic sufferer, one who has many down days, broken in spirit, with his days being cut short, but still possesses a strong faith...Job seems to be this way (although God will later heal him)...God allowed the evil one to take away Job's family and then his health, and all he is left with is his feelings of suffering and his faith...God, in the centurion's case, has allowed his servant to be and get sick and is about to die...
Sometimes it seems that if we are successful, we are happy...But our happiness and our feelings are also determined by our mother and father, and the environment we grew up in...When we are nurtured and raised in a happy home, with love from our parents and are also blessed with a strong social network and friends we are happier, or a least can be happier...But we can have a nice, happy family environment and still lack faith...Jesus, I think in a round-about way, addresses this in his Sermon on the Mount and Sermon on the Plain...We can have dark feelings be low, be poor in spirit, be mourning, and be weeping -and still be blessed with faith...
When we get in Job's situation and lose many of our past successes of wealth and lose our family, we can be left only with our faith...We can have our spirit broken, and still cling to our faith...We must think like Job and the centurion...Job exercised his faith and clung to it, albeit while questioning God...Jesus was amazed at the centurion's faith...He was a Gentile...The centurion was more aware of the power of Jesus than God's own people of Israel...Jesus even says, "I tell you, I have not found such great faith even in Israel"...
Both Job and the centurion remained in their faith and trusted that God would keep His word...The word of the Bible...The word of God...The word of Jesus...Job and the centurion were rewarded for keeping their faith...Job's health not only returned, but he returned to prosperity...The friends who the centurion sent, went back home and found the servant well...