Lying in bed, I think, ‘When will it be morning?’ But the night drags on, and I toss till dawn. Job 7:4 (NLT)
Sometimes it’s just one bad news after another. But the problem is you don’t seem to making any headway and it feels like you’ve been dealing with the same issue for so long that it’s now normal. To such an extent it’s hard to remember a time when there wasn’t a struggle. And you’re wondering if it’s time to accept this as your new reality instead of praying for a change.
Job’s world
That’s exactly what happened to Job. It began with a flood of bad news, one after the other. Everything he owned was gone. Either it was stolen by someone or it was destroyed in a natural disaster. But his livelihood…his wealth…his employees…all gone.
But the wave of bad news continues. In a most devastating turn of events, all his kids have died in a terrible accident. In one day Job’s financial future and his legacy have been eradicated.
Some time passes – not sure how much but not enough to recover from everything he’s already gone through. And instead of his circumstances getting better, Job’s health deteriorates (Job 2). His body is covered with boils from the top of his head to the tips of his feet. And he’s miserable!
The Bible doesn’t say how long Job was ill but scholars believe it lasted anywhere from slighter under a year to over a week. Long enough for Job to get discouraged and wish he wasn’t been born (Job 3).
And there was no respite. No escape. Food was unappetizing. Sleep evaded him. The only constant was the unrelenting pain and suffering. He was in so much pain, he says his bones hurt (Job 30:17). And no matter how desperately he wished to see a new day, dawn was nowhere on the horizon. He was stuck in a never-ending night.
Suffering
If there are life hacks for overcoming difficult seasons it should be contained in the book of Job. Unfortunately, there aren’t any. The only way to get through difficult times is by living through it.
Suffering is not a pleasant topic of conversation, neither is it an enjoyable experience. It’s hard! Job wrestled with God and even questioned why God would’ve allowed him to be born in the first place. It would’ve been better had he died after birth than to go through the pain he was enduring – both physically and emotionally (Job 3). He was depressed. His circumstances were overwhelming and he was in such bad shape his friends didn’t even recognize him when they came to visit. They refrained from speaking to him for 7 days because they saw how much he was suffering.
Learning from Job
It’s easy to get caught up in the horrors of Job’s story and forget an important truth: he survived.
Job survived
- financial ruin
- loss of income
- death of his children
- health issues
- betrayal
- depression
- relentless pain
Was he affected by everything that happened to him? Yes. It would be impossible not to be. The book of Job is filled with his struggle. But sometimes we have to travel through rouged and difficult terrain to get to our destination. Shortcuts might not be an option. Not everything has a hack. And numbing or escaping our reality isn’t going to make the problems go away.
It’s never fun to talk about pain and suffering and worse still to go through it. There are no words to take away the pain. But what Job’s story teaches us is that it can be weathered. We are a lot stronger than we think. We are survivors. Our courage is forged in the fires of our trials. And strength is built each time we get up to greet another day and stay in the fight.
No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us. Romans 8:37 NLT