Job 10:1-22

“Why?” is always one of the first and biggest questions that we have when we face suffering or hardship in our lives.  Job is no different.  He has examined his life and been very contentious about his walk with God and service before God.  He had been extremely blessed and then; all of the sudden, without reason, Job has been destroyed.  He cannot see anything that would merit this judgment in his life so he simply begs to know why all of this has happened to him.  The reality of Job’s situation and ours is that we will very rarely ever know why we will face the suffering and the circumstances of life that we do not enjoy or appreciate.  God does not owe us explanations.  We must simply believe that He is truly in control and that He is leading us through the circumstances that surround our lives in such a way that it will ultimately bring the most glory to His holy name.  Job is in the depths of despair; his mind is filled with doubt, his body is writhing with pain and his heat is full of grief.  Is seems that these are the two questions he longs to have answered.

WHY DID GOD BOTHER TO GIVE ME LIFE?:  Job is very well aware of the fact that his life came from God and that God had carefully put him together peace by peace.  Job gives a beautiful description of God’s careful hand in creation as He put each of us together according to His glorious plan.  What Job cannot understand is how God could take so much care in forming his body only to inflict it with so much pain and destruction.  We all take great pride in the things that we have “made” from the “refrigerator art” our parents graciously displayed when we were children to our more elaborate “creations” as adults; we cherish these works.  Job simply wants to know why God would bother to make him and then take no pride in His creation and simply cast it aside to be trampled in the gutter.  The answer to Job’s question and ours, for that matter, is simply this: God has not completed His creation of us yet.  We are works of “art” in progress and the reality of the creation process is that it is painful.  It involves shaping and molding, cutting and scraping.  These are not usually pleasant sensations; however, they are a necessary part of what God is doing to mold us into the creation that will bring Him glory.

WHY WILL GOD NOT BLESS ME WITH DEATH?: Job’s greatest wish at this point in his life is to simply die.  He longs to be set free from the pain that he is facing.  He can no longer see any point in going on with his life in his current condition.  He sees death as a place of rest and an end of suffering and he longs for that reality to overtake him.  I believe that this is an attitude that God would have all of us to emulate more frequently. I think that too often we hold onto this life far too tightly.  Paul also looked forward to death because he knew that it meant being in the presence of the Lord.  We do not know about Job’s view of eschatology, but we do know that his hope was greater in death than it was in life.  We never have God’s blessing on promoting our own death but we also do not have God’s blessing on holding on too much to this life.  We must set our hearts on that which is eternal and then use our bodies as long as He gives us life to serve and honor Him.  Certainly we ought not to fill our lives with complaint and longing for death, but we also ought not to worship our lives and live in constant fear of death.  Life and death are in the hands of God and should be dedicated fully to His glory.