*Scripture: Job 7:1-21 (NKJV)* 1 "Is there not a time of hard service for man on earth? Are not his days also like the days of a hired man? 2 Like a servant who earnestly desires the shade, and like a hired man who eagerly looks for his wages, 3 so I have been allotted months of futility, and wearisome nights have been appointed to me. 4 When I lie down, I say, 'When shall I arise, and the night be ended?' For I have had my fill of tossing till dawn. 5 My flesh is caked with worms and dust, my skin is cracked and breaks out afresh. 6 My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and are spent without hope. 7 Oh, remember that my life is a breath! My eye will never again see good. 8 The eye of him who sees me will see me no more; While your eyes are upon me, I shall no longer be. 9 As the cloud disappears and vanishes away, so he who goes down to the grave does not come up. 10 He shall never return to his house, Nor shall his place know him anymore.
11 "Therefore I will not restrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. 12 Am I a sea, or a sea serpent, that You set a guard over me? 13 When I say, 'My bed will comfort me, my couch will ease my complaint,' 14 Then You scare me with dreams and terrify me with visions, 15 so that my soul chooses strangling and death rather than my body. 16 I loathe my life; I would not live forever. Let me alone, for my days are but a breath. 17 What is man, that You should exalt him, that You should set Your heart on him, 18 that You should visit him every morning, and test him every moment? 19 How long? Will You not look away from me, and let me alone till I swallow my saliva? 20 Have I sinned? What have I done to You, O watcher of men? Why have You set me as Your target, so that I am a burden to myself? 21 Why then do You not pardon my transgression, and take away my iniquity? For now I will lie down in the dust, and You will seek me diligently, but I will no longer be." *Devotion* Job seems to believe the Lord is set against him and that God is his enemy. Job assumes that he is the object of God's target practice. He desires shade and repose from the hard labor of life, yet his Master refuses to give him his wages or comfort. He wants relief from his suffering but that suffering is laid upon him by the same God Who is to be his comfort and hope. To whom shall Job go in the midst of such an entangling paradox? Where do we turn when God seems to be set against us? We are to look to the example of our Lord Jesus on the Cross. In the great mystery of our salvation, God the Father abandons God the Son since the Lord cannot tolerate sin. This causes Christ to speak the words of Psalm 22, "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" Christ experienced the full wrath of God against sin and the Divine abandonment in which sinners would otherwise be lost. Christ understood that it was the Father who was afflicting Him. Where did Christ our Lord turn when God the Father became His enemy? He says, "Into Thy hands I commit my spirit." Christ trusts the same Father that is smiting Him in wrath for the sins of the world. This is our pattern in suffering. Though God may be smiting us, we are to turn to Him in confidence. He will not abandon us, because He abandoned Christ. He does not punish us with wrath, because Christ endured the wrath of God. This is the hope of all who believe and are in Christ by faith.
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