Job 6:8-10 8“Oh, that I might have my request, that God would grant what I hope for, 9that God would be willing to crush me, to let loose his hand and cut off my life! 10Then I would still have this consolation— my joy in unrelenting pain— that I had not denied the words of the Holy One.
Grief and physical pain are probably the worst combination of experiences that people can encounter here in this life. Loss of a family member in tragic circumstances can take your breath away. It can get you questioning every assumption you have ever made about the purpose of life and the existence of God. It can even be hard to hold onto faith in these times.
And if you throw unrelenting physical pain to that mix, you have a recipe for great spiritual turmoil. It is one thing when you are sick if you know the pain will go away eventually. But those who face pain without reasonable hope of relief are confronted with a life designed to bring hopelessness.
Job is facing this exact situation. He has lost his whole future. His children are dead. All his wealth and earning potential have been stolen. And his body has been attacked by a painful, incurable disease that leaves him rejected and in pain.
And then his friends come to support him. They do really well for the first week. Then they open their mouths and start speaking, and everything goes downhill from there. When they were with him, just with him, sitting with him in his pain, he seems to feel supported.
Even Job doesn’t seem to speak during the time when his friends are sitting with him. The grief and pain are completely overwhelming to him. He
Often the best thing we can do for someone who is suffering is just sit with them saying nothing. Our attempts to give helpful words often come off as canned platitudes. Our motives might be pure, but it is very difficult to hear any words of comfort when the pain is so great.
What we really need is to know that we are not alone! Just having people present anchors our soul in the pool of humanity. We know we are best understood when the silence of presence is the loudest. These are the groans of the soul that are universal regardless of language, culture, or even time.
These kinds of groans tell us that something is ‘profoundly wrong’ with the world. They also tell us that there is a ‘profoundly right’ for which we yearn. We know that death is wrong because we know inherently that we were meant for life. That is why we universally shake our fits to the sky when tragedy happens. It is the cry of our heart for the heart of God.
So here Job sits with his friends in silence. His pain so great that he can only say something like this. “If this is the way the world is, then get me the next ticket out of here.” All he wanted out of life was peace, quiet, rest and no turmoil (3:26). But this is exactly what he isn’t getting.
Peace, quiet, rest are all blessings of a person in right relationship with God. Remember Job’s qualities outlined in the first chapter: blameless, upright, fears God, shuns evil. When these are present the natural outcome in the universe the LORD designed is peace, quiet and rest. We might sum up these qualities in our modern way of thinking by calling them contentment.
So no wonder he can’t get his bearings. He has experienced the blessing of God coming in his life as a result of his godly character that grew out of a relationship with the LORD. The relationship lead to obedience that brought forth godly character that demonstrated itself in his life as righteous actions. He walked his talk.
So next time you hear someone who is in the midst of this kind of struggle express words despairing of life itself, remember Job. They just need someone to sit with them.
Will you be that one?
The Arnold Journey 