Everyone knows sorrow. Usually, sorrows come one at a time and are dealt with as they come. However, there are times when as the tides of the sea, heartaches and sorrows flood into life, one right after the other. Sorrow experienced on this level, can leave one drowning in emotional and physical pain . There isn’t time to deal with one issue before another shows its ugly face. Multiple sorrows can leave the mind confused and our body paralyzed. The platitudes of friends sting like nettles as they are a promise that seems to have failed in time of need. One may feel angry at God or be so low as not to care if God has a plan and is in control. There is no thought other than wanting the pain and current circumstance to end.
Life’s storms have the power to consume the mind and settle over one as a black night, produced by inward struggle. In this state, everything known and believed is tested, over and over again. Thoughts surge to the forefront of the mind, unbidden and tear at the heart as a howling wind with its mournful cry. Anger rumbles like thunder, expressed in the question asked, as several in succession, ”Why? Why? Why!” Fists shake toward Heaven in fierce self-justification, in knowing one hasn’t done anything to deserve such a trial. Then wilting submission, with the realization that none are justified before God. Humans aren’t much more than specks of dirt blown about on the wind. Why should God care? Anger then sinks into depression, as deep within the soul, one finds escape and refuge and from the world withdraws. This time taken to succor pain and hide as wounds are tended to is meant to last a short while; but can lengthen to last, even, a lifetime. When all seems lost and there is not even left the desire to hope the natural longing for life may be replaced by an unnatural longing for death.
When emotional pain and doubt consume, it is easy to imagine one’s self all alone; and thinking that no one has ever endured such hardship. Job is the oldest book in the Bible. Job knew all about sorrow. The evil one took everything from him except his life and God allowed him to do it. Job always loved God and tried to do everything right and this is why the devil chose him. God knew that Job was faithful to Him and that he loved Him. God allowed his trial because He knew that Job wouldn’t fail and the evil one would be shamed. It took a great deal to weaken Job’s faith but when it weakened, God came and reasoned with him and restored his right mind. Job not only shamed, Satan but God restored him and gave him more than he possessed before. God also worked all in Job’s life to good as his life was written in scripture and countless persons over thousands and thousands of years, have found empathy, comfort, and hope in all that Job endured.
Many will suffer as Job suffered, for as long as humans walk the earth. Job, as an old testament saint looked forward to the coming Messiah but He couldn’t know Jesus as we are able, today. Jesus has the power to calm the stormy waters as He calls us to walk to Him. This is the power of faith. Jesus gives us the ability to rise above all that threatens us and walk toward Him with our eyes steadfast upon Him. In Jesus, death has no permenent power because Jesus gives, to all who believe in Him, eternal life. Death began as it entered the world by sin and someday, death will end. It is a temporary state and when sin dies, death will pass with it. Jesus is Life and the true eternal state. No matter what the evil one sets against those who belong to Him and no matter how fierce the storm rages, those who are in Jesus will never die. Jesus conquered death and death, being nothing more than a shadow, vanishes on the day that death dies. Anything that God’s children suffer and lose during this present time, is nothing compared to the blessings He will give when Life completely swallows death. No one will know pain and sorrow again. No matter what happens in this life, in Jesus, the soul is safe from the raging sea.
