Job 14:1-22 Man’s Lot

Job is tired. He is tired of being in pain and tired of defending himself. He sees man’s lot in life in all shades of black right now. He pleads for relief.

This is a very depressing description of a man’s life, in my opinion. I hear only sorrow coming from Job’s lips. From birth to death, his time has already been established and it is a hard one. “He comes out like a flower and withers; he flees like a shadow and continues not” (verse 2). From the moment of birth Job sees death coming.

Although essentially true on many levels, this is a dark view of life. What comes in between is important. Job, in his misery only sees the pain that comes. In his pain he sees life as God looking down and squashing all possible joy out of a man’s life through a continual process of judgement. Man CANNOT life up to God’s standards so his life is spent in misery. Job sees no hope for a man who is born from sin to be sinless. And he sees no hope beyond the grave.

Here one moment, gone the next is the life Job describes. His current pain has blotted out all the amazing times of his past. The love of his parents. Courting his wife. The birth of his children. Building his fortune. AMAZING times he spent with God. All these things have faded from his memory. They mean nothing to him right now. He is being crushed by a weight of sorrow, and the condemnation by his friends is NOT helping his outlook!

I have been where Job is today. There was a time when all I could see was pain. The pain was emotional in my case, unlike Job’s physical pain. Job’s was also emotional too though. The God he had spent his whole life serving was beyond his reach. He felt abandoned. Actually he felt more than abandoned; he felt like God had turned on him and he didn’t know why.

Why is it that, in our darkest times, we often forget about the good things we have had in life? We can’t seem to see beyond the oppressive cloud surrounding us. The future looks as bleak as the present and the past is dismissed. Job typified this model. He saw only death in his future. He didn’t see any possibility for joy or even recovery. Even a dead tree had more hope that Job did.

I have discovered something that Job will have to work through. Our pain is NOT all there is to our lives! It took the help of my family and a good therapist to get me to this point. Job is going to get a miracle of revelation too but for now he has to hang on. There will come a time when joy returns. That fact is hard to hold onto in the night.

When thinking about Job and how hard it is to hold on in the dark times, a thought keeps coming to me. I don’t know if it is for me or for someone else, but I’m going to share it and let God do with it what He may.

Prepare ahead of time. Write down your blessings as they occur. Make memories that will break through the darkness. Talk with family and friends and have them help you recall those special times. Set up ‘aid stations’ in your environment that you can turn to in those times, because there WILL be those times in your life. In your aid stations put scripture that inspires you and mementos that remind you of the good times in your life. You might want to even include a reminder that even this new season came to PASS.

Even if the season is physical suffering and it ends your mortal life THERE IS MORE. For those who know Jesus, there is hope on the other side of it. Eternity with Him is worth MORE than anything we have to suffer here on earth. That is another thing lacking in Job’s outlook.

Father God, THANK YOU that You never abandon me, or ANY of Your children. For my brothers and sisters who are going through dark times right now, I pray that You will make Your presence felt in their lives. That You will reach through the darkness and bring a little spark of light into their hearts. Like You did with me on SO many occasions. My favorite two are the ‘love bubble’ You brought up in my heart and popped like a balloon filled with confetti in me one very lonely morning, and the laughter of my children that inspired the poem Thank You for the Laughter one afternoon. These memories have sustained me and reminded me how much You love me. I visit them in the dark times and they help me hold on and hold out hope. THANK YOU for the laughter that You have brought back into my life. THANK YOU for always being my light in the darkness. And for not leaving me in the darkness but providing a way out. THANK YOU for the pen and paper and for allowing me to pour my heart out this way.