What’s the Purpose?
“Why then have You brought me out of the womb? Would that I had died and no eye had seen me! I should have been as though I had not been, carried from womb to tomb.” Job 10:18-19 NASB
Had not been – The story of Job challenges the belief that God is just. All of Job’s tragedies swirl around this theme. Is God malicious? Does He allow sorrow and suffering simply to satisfy His ego before His enemies? How is it that God treats the righteous with such carelessness? Since Job finds no answers to these questions, he wishes only that he had never existed. What is the point of a life that serves only as a battlefield for God and His accuser but profits a man nothing but agony?
Torah is predicated upon the foundation of justice. The promise of Torah is that God is just and that justice will win in the end. If we take away this promise, then we stand with Job, crying out to a God who offers us no recompense for His manipulation of our lives. We did not choose to be born, and from Job’s perspective, we have little or no choice in the fate of our living. If God were truly just, He would prevent births that result in lives of anguish. But He doesn’t. Why?
Shakespeare captured Job’s frustration in that famous line, “To be or not to be, that is the question.” Job answered long before Hamlet. If it were up to Job, the answer would be “not to be” (lo hayiti). But Job’s answer does not include Hamlet’s contemplation of suicide (“To die – to sleep”). Job’s answer is a past tense reflection, not a present tense option. Even if Job finds no purpose in his life, he does not consider ending it. Why not? Because life still belongs to God even if it seems entirely pointless. For Job the question is not about choosing to end his life. It is about the unexplained origin of his life. Believing that God is completely in charge of life, Job does not consider self-termination. All he asks is why God allows such a life as his to exist in the first place. Without the demonstration of justice, Job questions the righteousness of God. He is entitled to do so. A God who isn’t just is not a God worth worshipping.
I don’t think we have come very far from Job. Perhaps in a world without gods we could contemplate Hamlet’s solution, but since our world is occupied with YHWH, we are left with Job’s plea, not Hamlet’s. Why does a God of justice allow lives of suffering? Why do the wicked prosper? Why are the innocent slaughtered all the day long? Where is the demonstration of God’s benevolence? You might point to the conclusion of the story of Job and emphasize the prosperity God pours upon Job after this trial. But I would take you to the graveyard and point you to the graves of his children. Do camels and crops compensate? I think not! Why does God remove what cannot be replaced and recompense with things that are entirely temporal? Why is the world still filled with men and women like Job?
The Bible makes no attempt to avoid these questions. It does not whitewash our serious doubt about God’s justice and benevolence. Job is a story that questions the very nature of the divine, and yet here it is, firmly placed in the Scriptures. Why? After we have suffered through Job-like experiences, after we have every right to ask the question, what purpose does this challenge to God serve? Why would God reveal to us a fatal flaw in His character? Perhaps we have not truly come into His presence until we come bloodied. Until we come without an answer. And then, perhaps, things look different.
Topical Index: had not been, lo hayiti, benevolence, suicide, Job 10:18-19
A NOTE ABOUT BLOG COMMENTS: When I travel a lot, sometimes I can’t get to approving your blog comments very quickly. The system is set up so that if you haven’t blogged before, it asks me to approve the first message and after that usually lets you submit without delay. Yesterday I caught up. If you were wondering why your comment didn’t get into the blog, it was only because I was still trying to catch up from a month on the road.
Skip
Perhaps we have not truly come into His presence until we come bloodied. Until we come without an answer. And then, perhaps, things look different.
Now you are cutting more than skin deep ….
Thank you
~ Why then have You brought me out of the womb? Would that I had died and no eye had seen me! I should have been as though I had not been, carried from womb to tomb ~ (Job 10:18-19)
Job, at this point is hurtin’ for certain! I think we all would agree this day in the life of Job was not his best day. There is what has become known by some as “the dark night of the soul,” -not exactly the zenith of Job’s days on earth, but certainly near the nadir, a very low and lonesome valley, a place where all Job could do was to look up. But Job remained faithful through it all- and in the end, having gone “through the valley”- this story we now know as “the patience of Job” did have a happy ending for Job, “back in the day..”
~But the God of all grace, who has called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that you have suffered a while, restore, establish, strengthen, settle you ~ (1 Peter 5.10) It seems, maybe Job was not alone in his suffering.
Where did Job meet his Maker? It wasn’t on the mountain – that was Moses story, this was in the valley, somewhere near the pit of despair. But as we see in “everyman’s” story.. (through it all), God was faithful.
Job gained, through sorrow and suffering, through trials and tribulation, the wonderful gift of perspective and was also granted an audience with his own Maker and Master.
C. S. Lewis wrote: “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” Our Sovereign Savior is not random in anything He says or does, but everything serves His purposes up to and including, our pain. Pain (itself) can be our best teacher; and chastening certainly can be (ouch!) “instructive!”
-when the student is ready, the Teacher will show up!
~ Behold, we count them happy which endure. You have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the LORD; that the LORD is very compassionate, and of tender mercy ~ (James 5.11)
Nothing I am aware of will compensate for the loss of even one child let alone 10. But my child belonged to God who had trusted me to raise him. He belonged to God before I called him my child and he belonged to God when he was called home at a time I would not have chosen. This happened years ago, but my heart still hurts with the pain of the loss, and I feel sure Job felt the same way. I have other children and 15 grandchildren, but none of these substitute for the one lost. I don’t have any more answer than Job did, but both of us have trusted God with His decision.
This TW underlines strongly how we all live with very limited understanding of the ways of God.
But a day is coming when we will understand all things (Ecc.11:5; 1 Cor. 13:12).
Where is God when it life hurts, and hurts badly? He is with you — He has promised to never leave nor forsake you.
When you have no strength of your own, that is when you can most fully rest in His presence and know that His strength is made perfect in your weakness (2 Cor. 12:9-10).
There are many wonderful lessons in Jobs’ life.
A foretaste of the gospel is in this ancient book, –Job described the experience of salvation as one in which men, destined to eternity in “the pit,” are RANSOMED and REDEEMED by a gracious God who shines His light on them (Job 33:23-30) !!!
“There are many wonderful lessons in Jobs’ life.”
Hi Dorothy,
I’m not sure if “wonderful lesson” is exactly what I would call Job’s life
In Job, Yahweh behaves a little bit like Don Corleone in the GodFather
Yahweh gives Job “an offer he can’t refuse”
The offer seems to be “sacrifice the lives of your family and all your wealth”
To prove your loyalty to your “King”
Ha Satan, the adversary in the Heavenly court, does not think
Job can get the job done
Of course Job proves Ha Satan wrong, because Job is Yahweh’s most loyal servant
Job shows Yahweh he will remain faithful to the end
At any cost
Hi Michael, (my face has a big smile for you!). You helped me decide.
Yesterday I was going to list some of the lessons, that to me are “wonderful” to possess.
Now I think I’ll go ahead and share some for us to discuss if you like.
Questions are answered in Job.
Job ponders the cause of his misery, (saves us some hours by the time we are in it real deep!)
3 questions come to Job’s mind that are answered in our Lord Jesus Christ, and in Him only!
All these questions are in ch. 14.
Vs. 4, Job asks, “Who can bring what is pure from the impure? No one!?” Job’s recognizes he cannot possibly please God or become justified in His sight.
God is holy; a great gulf–erosion by sin–exists between man and God. The answer to Job’s anguished question is found in Jesus Christ.
He has paid the penalty for our sin and has exchanged it for His righteousness, thereby making us acceptable in God’s sight (Heb. 10:14; Col. 1:21-23; 2 Cor. 5:17).
Vs. 14, Job’s second question is about eternity, life, and death. “But man dies and lies prostrate; Man expires, and where is he?”
With Christ, the answer to ‘where is he?’ is eternal life in heaven. Without Christ, the answer is an eternity in “outer darkness” (Matt. 25:30).
Vs. 14, Job’s third question: “If a man dies, will he live again?” Again, the answer is found in Christ. We do live again if we are in Him.
“When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’ ‘Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?’” (1 Cor. 15:54-55).
The Book of Job teaches us to trust God under all circumstances.
The veil is drawn back so we can see there is a cosmic conflict going on the behind the scenes. Without the book of Job being written for us, we’d never know this happens.
When it does happen to us, or those we love, we ought to be cheering loudly for our side in the contest!!! Cheer or doubt God’s goodness, I choose to cheer and trust.
“As for God, His way is perfect” (Ps. 18: 30). If God’s ways are “perfect,” (and they are) then we can trust that whatever He does—and whatever He allows—is also perfect.
Do we have to understand it, NO. We are required to walk by faith, not by sight.
A great lesson on the marriage bond is found in Job
In satan’s war on Job, God allowed the testing of Job’s faith, but drew the line at Job’s life (1:2). satan was allowed to take the life of Job’s children, but God declares that a husband and wife are “one flesh”, and because of this God-ordained bond, satan was forbidden to take the life of Job’s wife. She obviously did not have faith like that of Job, but it wasn’t her faith that spared her, it was her marriage bond with Job.
God’s purpose in writing the record for us:
God has power over what satan can and cannot do.
Now we understand that satan cannot bring financial or physical destruction upon us unless it is by God’s permission.
We cannot always blame suffering and sin on lifestyle. Suffering may be allowed in our lives to purify, test, teach, or strengthen the soul.
God is enough for anyone. GOD IS ENOUGH
Thru our own suffering we can dwell on the magnificence of God displayed in Job, and we can say with him, “My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you” (42:5).
My personal testimony is that at times when things have hurt so very much, it was worth it for I felt God come so close. Would I turn back the clock and my trials if I were given the choice? NO, –the experience with HIM was worth it. God arrives in the dark, the confusion, and in the pain. I’d never give up my experiences with Him.
I know first hand that God IS enough !
and, yes, Carl, “Tho He slay me . . .”
“The bottom line” or capsule statement of the faith of Job, ~”Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” ~ (Job 13.15) is a faith attained by only a few good men (and women). “Even unto death”- and many martyrs have as we witness in the second half of Hebrews chapter eleven “heroes hall of fame” starting with the nameless “and others..” It has been said, and it is up to us to determine the worth of this statement: ~ “The faith that cannot be tested, cannot be trusted..” (Is this true?) For our faith also- is tested daily, through situation and circumstance- and sometimes through ‘trying’ people..
And who had the greater witness, those who are “named” such as Moses, David, Elijah, etc..(Christian celebrities?) – or the ones who belong to the “and others..?” I know the question: – Are we willing “even unto death?” or a greater question might be- “are we willing to live for Jesus?” for ~ whether we live or die, we are the LORD’s ~
~For if we live, we live to the LORD, and if we die, we die to the LORD. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the LORD’s ~ (Romans 14.8)
~ He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to Him all are alive ~ (Luke 20:38)
~ I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death ~ (Philippians 1:20)
“Sufficient courage?” Sufficient courage for those who belong to Him to say and to know- ~ O death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory? ~ (1 Corinthians 15.55)
or “sufficient courage” to face “the challenges” of a new day.. Today, I know He will be there for me.. but will I “be there” for Him?
~ that I should know how to speak a word in season to him who is weary ~ — (Isaiah 50:4).
I wanted to share what may be the single most complete and marvelous thing I think I have ever read on the book of Job. This was written years ago, but I think all of it is so apropo for me I had to share. It also mirrors so much of what I am seeing Skip pointing out. I am grateful to him for shedding some light on this most maligned and misunderstood book. Thank you so much, Skip! The book of Job was the only thing in the Bible that my Mama said she identified with for years of her affliction. We in the pit are not alone: there’s always Job!
Here’s the link: http://www.plymouthbrethren.org/article/727. I am sorry my copy function appears to not be working. You will have to type in the address, instead of copy, I am afraid.