Job 6-9: Confession… If you don’t want to look behind the curtain and see the real person please stop reading now.
I have always struggled with Job. As I was reading today’s passage I was able to put some words together to realize why. It is because it takes me back to a dark place in my own life when I didn’t want to live. I prayed for God to take me. My heart was broken and I just wanted to “go home”. I knew the Lord and His care for me. I also knew people avoided me because they simply did not know what to say. I wondered too if people thought I had done something wrong. Had something I had done caused this tragedy? I knew I had not and it wasn’t my fault but when you are down or low of spirit the enemy finds you easy pickings to put untruth into your thought patterns. I clung to the word and I knew God’s presence which was why I found myself begging Him to change my situation. He didn’t. It has taken years to find some healing, but even then I want to keep the doors closed to that part of my heart so that the depth of that pain doesn’t have to be explored.
I am not like Job. I have not lost 10 children, my job or a fortune. I haven’t lost most of my possessions, and my friends when they did speak did not speak out foolishness. They were most comforting as were my parents and my husband. I did not lose my health, but all of that being said my pain was still real, raw, deep for me. So to read Job is to confront someone whose pain was real, deep and raw brings back many of my own thoughts. Peace comes from seeing though it took years, God did restore him. God was with him and in the end everyone else saw and realized that God was as real to him in the end as he was at the beginning and middle. God’s glory was made known through this trial. I know that has been and will be the case for me as well.
God is good, true and right no matter what the circumstance I face. I can and will trust Him no matter the pain I experience. As He told Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you. In your weakness I am your strength.” If you find yourself hurting today, hold on. God will strengthen you as well as you trust in Him and one day you won’t have to ask Him to help you want to live again. You won’t have to ask Him so many of the questions you have right now. Just believe He is good. He loves you and your pain will have a purpose in the end.