JOB 7:1-3 – “Has not man a hard service on earth, and are not his days like the days of a hired hand? Like a slave who longs for the shadow, and like a hired hand who looks for his wages, so I am allotted months of emptiness, and nights of misery are apportioned to me.
THEME OF THE DAY. LIFE AS IT REALLY IS. Confession time. In two areas. First, I want a ministry that is effective for Jesus; relationships without any conflict; be a great husband, father, and grandfather; live with no stress, worry, or anxiety; and I want all of those without much effort on my part; without any problems upsetting such a ministry and life; and no circumstances that cause me pain. Basically, I want heaven now while living in a world that is under the curse of God due to sin ensuring such a life will not exist. Now my second confession and tied into today’s scripture. I repeatedly fail to see life as Job did and the Bible teaches. The evidence I don’t is when I complain about my circumstances, am critical toward people, and enter into “woe is me” self-pity parties when life isn’t easy and going the way I want and think it should be. Perhaps I, maybe you, need to sit back and think about life as it really is. Let’s do so together.
First, life is hard. Life will be hard. And that will never change. Comfortable, easy, and problem-free living cannot occur in this life. Why? Sin and the curse of God. Remember what He said to our first parents after they sinned – To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.” And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:16-19). These are the consequences, life-long consequences of sin. A lot may be said about this portion of scripture, but for our purposes today, two things stand out – life will be hard, painful, exhausting, full of tension, sorrow, suffering, and no amount of effort to change it by any human being will work. This is of God. He leveled upon us the consequences of sin and that means lives of continual difficulties. The sooner we understand and remember this, the quicker we will not complain about our difficulties in life. We will also learn to live under the sustaining power of His grace in life’s miseries.
Another important truth to remember about this life we live is it isn’t eternal. Cling to this. Misery is for a season. Suffering for a season. Pain for a season. Affliction for a season. Disappointment for a season. And those seasons are short. Job would remind us later in his book of the brevity of life – Man who is born of woman is few of days and full of trouble. He comes out like a flower and withers; he flees like a shadow and continues not (Job 14:1-2). I understand when under the heavy weight of life’s problems, painful circumstances and situations, they appear to last forever. Satan, and our flesh, will tempt us to think our suffering will never end. Rebuke such lies by the Word. They are temporary. They are fleeting. They will come to an end. Learning to think on life with its brevity allows us to properly respond to life’s difficulties.
Life as it really is. Ask God to show us this on a regular basis. It will help us live the Christian life as it really is; in glad submission to God in all things.
PRAYER: “Father, forgive me when I think my life should be easy, comfortable, and problem-free”
QUOTE: “Life is hard. Life will be hard. And that will never change. Don’t be deceived to think or perceive it otherwise.”