September 17 – Job

September 17 – Job
Job 3:1-19

When things get so bad that you curse the day of your birth, it is going to be difficult to return from that.  By the third chapter of Job, he was done.

He refused to curse God, but he definitely wished that he didn’t have to go through all that he was facing.  The best part of this chapter is the intricacy of his declaration.

Job wanted the day he was born to be gone; the words, “A boy is born” to never have been spoken; for God to not care about that day.

If that day were covered in darkness, the night he was born be barren, there be no shout of joy from those who were part of his birth; he’d have been much happier.

As he moved passed cursing the actual day, Job decided that maybe it would have been easier to shut the door of his mother’s womb … or maybe he could have just died at birth.  Then, his complaints become pleas.  Why were there knees to receive him or breasts to nurse him.  If all that had been unavailable, he would just be dead, lying in peace.

Why, he asks, is light given to those in misery and life to those who are bitter?

There are many who face periods in their life when they question why they are even here.  I have. When I’m feeling exceptionally sorry for myself, I acknowledge that it would be easier if I hadn’t been born.  It’s so easy to get sucked into believing that the very worst of the world has focused on me.

There was no comforting or encouraging Job.  He didn’t want to hear any of it.  He thought God had abandoned him and his life was no longer worthwhile.  The day of his birth was obviously the beginning of all his calamities and if it could have been purged from history, the world would be a better place and he wouldn’t be suffering.

But, God had a plan.  God has a plan for each of us and that plan required that we each come into the world and face it.  But, we never have to face it alone.  That plan also offers us the opportunity to walk in a relationship with God.  That’s an opportunity no one should ignore.