210 - "Pain Unassuaged" Job 14-15

God numbers my steps: doesn't He watch over my every sin? It is sealed up in a bag. Fastened tight. Job 14:16

"Persecution so persistent would wear out the strongest," says Matthew Henry. He goes on to say: Does God destroy the hope of man in his own overwhelming personal pain? 

For now! You know, Job knew and believed in a God who would help and deliver him. But this disaster upon disaster was like it was too much for him to still believe that God was doing something in this. All his sins sealed up like endictments of how much he had done wrong. We look back on Job's day. We know truth in ways he did not. Job's depravity prevails here. He sees his God as going too far against him and his family. 

  
"The Lord must prevail against all who contend with him. God may send disease and pain, we may lose all comfort in those near and dear to us, every hope of earthly happiness may be destroyed, but God will receive the believer into realms of eternal happiness." Matthew Henry
Do not seal up my transgressions in a bag, nor note my iniquities in thy register." He doesn't!

Job's friends called his tears poured out to God "windy knowledge," Job 15:2, "unprofitable talk."  They went so far as to say that Job is doing away with the fear of God. Job 15:4.  Oh!  This father sits in an enormous enigma.  His pain is so overwhelming that he cannot see straight to God.  And, yet, his "miserable comforters" inquire if God's comforts are too small for Job?  May we hold our wisdom for we walk not in those moccasins. 

C.S. Lewis said that when pain is to be born, a little courage helps more than much knowledge from your friends, a little human sympathy means more than much courage, and the least tincture of the Love of God is more than all of that.  May we give away this day the Love of God.  Help us to reach deep to love deeply. 

PHOTO:  The view of the base of Mount Rainier in Eatonville.  A few tears had just spilled out.  Jesus had nowhere to lay his head.  He understands aloneness.  Job was so alone in this.  From the top of the world to safe in His Savior's Arms, still and alone.