“And now my life seeps away. Depression haunts my days. At night my bones are filled with pain, which gnaws at me relentlessly. With a strong hand, God grabs my shirt. He grips me by the collar of my coat. He has thrown me into the mud. I’m nothing more than dust and ashes.” Job 30:16-19 NLT
In chapter 30, Job is not only at his wits end, he is at the finality of his situation and sees no light at the end of the tunnel, no end to his suffering. He now clearly believed that God was THE ONE who grabbed his shirt, chokingly twisting it and had thrown him to the ground. Sleep evades him at night and the hope of sunlight bearing better news turns into a nightmare of a haunting depression every day! He is utterly exhausted and has shooting pains in soul and body. He wonders where God is, fearing that God wants noting to do with him. God seems silent and evasive.
Job even continues to review his role in being judged and disciplined, although he could not perceive that he had done no wrong – it was all a test of will, of faith of grit and determination. The chapter begins with Job being humiliated by those with far less social or financial standing. Young men with so little maturity, they couldn’t even keep up with his own wrangling sheepdogs! Old men, past their prime, with no vigor to even help themselves. Job knows who they are and what they experienced in life: They are gaunt from poverty and hunger, they are driven from human society, nameless fools, and outcasts. These are the people now mocking him, deliberately and delightfully kicking him while he is down.
Yet, even though Job is innocent, he still had to reckon with his own actions towards those believed to be punished by God. In Job’s own words, he believes he saw their struggles and treated them fairly. “Surely no one would turn against the needy when they cry for help in their trouble. Did I not weep for those in trouble? Was I not deeply grieved for the needy?” Not to point out the obvious, but did he? Did he turn against the needy? Did he grieve?
If so, then how was he humiliated by their response to his own world falling apart? I am not saying God judged him for his attitude toward the outcast, but it seems obvious that he was oblivious until HE BECAME ONE.
Oh, how careful we must be when we cast assumptions and judgments on the poor, on the fringe who suffer bitterly throughout life. Some may say, “except for the grace of God, there go I.” Job experienced the low-end life IN and WITH God’s grace. I’m sure it changed him. I’m sure it adjusted his views on the haves and the have nots. Job 30 is a lesson on living life among the have nots! Instead of feasting with a silver spoon, Job learned to eat with a bitter spoon.
Prayer
Dad,
In many ways I lived the life of misery, not by a lack of food or shelter, but of safety, love and peace. I understand family chaos, generational addictions and any sense of normalcy as a child living with a fractured blended family that reeked of alcoholism and violence. But, even then, I look back and see your hand of grace; watching, shielding, even resiliently building faith in me. I am thankful that I may have started as one of those outcasts, but I did not remain as one. My heart and life is now dedicated to brokering hope to the hopeless. It’s all because of You.