How to Mourn with Someone, and Job Rues His Birthday~

After God grants the devil permission, Job loses his sons, his servants, his livestock, and he becomes covered in painful boils from his heel to his head.  Now when Job’s three friends hear of all this adversity that happens to him, each one leaves from his place, for they had made an appointment to come together and mourn with him, and to comfort him.  And when they raise their eyes from afar, they did not recognize him, so they lifted their voices and wept; and each tore his robe and sprinkled dust on his head toward heaven.

So they sat down with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his grief was very great. 

Saint Paul speaks to this when he says:

Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.  ~Romans 12:15

Not many things are worse than grieving and having others cause more harm than good with their words and intentions. The interesting thing is that God made consoling people the right way as simple as being present but doing nothing, not even speaking.  No one knows what someone might be feeling during their grief, but to support them appropriately lest we hurt them more is mandated in scripture.  It is validating to be acknowledged in grief.  So often we want to brush it off or move on, both as the one grieving and the friend of those in grief.  However, God calls us to sit still and be quiet in our grief.

After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth.  And Job spoke, and said:

“May the day perish on which I was born,

And the night in which it was said,

‘A male child is conceived.’

May that day be darkness;

May God above not seek it,

Nor the light shine upon it,

May darkness and the shadow of death claim it;

May a cloud settle on it;

May the blackness of the day terrify it.

As for that night, may darkness seize it;

MAY IT NOT BE INCLUDED AMONG THE DAYS OF THE YEAR,

MAY IT NOT COME INTO THE NUMBER OF THE MONTHS.

Oh, may that night be barren!

May no joyful shout come into it!

May those curse it who curse the day,

Those who are ready to arouse Leviathan.

May the stars of its morning be dark;

May it look for light, but have none,

And not see the dawning of the day;

Because it did not shut up the doors of my mother’s womb,

Nor hide sorrow from my eyes.

Why did I not die at birth?

Why did I not perish when I came from the womb?

Why did the knees receive me?

Or why the breasts, that I should nurse?

For now I would have lain still and been quiet,

I WOULD HAVE BEEN ASLEEP;

THEN I WOULD HAVE BEEN AT REST

WITH KINGS AND COUNSELORS OF THE EARTH,

WHO BUILT RUINS FOR THEMSELVES,

Or with princes who had gold,

Who filled their houses with silver;

Or why was I not hidden like a stillborn child,

Like infants who never saw light?

There the wicked cease from troubling,

And there the weary of strength are at rest.

There the prisoners are at ease together;

They do not hear the voice of the oppressor.

The small and great are there, and the servant is free from his master.

Why is light given to him who is in misery,

And life to the bitter of soul,

Who long for death, but it does not come,

And search for it more than hidden treasures;

Who rejoice exceedingly,

And are glad when they can find the grave?

WHY IS LIGHT GIVEN TO A MAN WHOSE WAY IS HIDDEN,

AND WHOM GOD HAS HEDGED IN?

For my sighing comes before I eat,

And my groanings pour out like water.

For the thing I greatly feared has come upon me,

And what I dreaded has happened to me.

I am not at ease, nor am I quiet;

I have no rest, for trouble comes.”

It is as if our life is a rite of passage that we must endure in order to search for ‘hidden treasures’ which is the knowledge of God.  Life, as miserable as it can be, is a blessing we must partake in to enter the kingdom of heaven.  Otherwise, we would be sleeping in the same place the pharaohs, wicked, wealthy, and weary [weak] go.  Where there is no servitude because there is no master.  In other words, if we had never been born, or if we had lived and died in the world, we would be asleep in darkness.  In order to achieve life and light, we must die to the world:  “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”  ~Matthew 10:39

Instead we have been given life.  We have been given light in God’s Son, Jesus.  And even though our way is hidden from us, we have been safely ‘hedged in’ by God.  We sigh, we groan, we suffer with our greatest fears realized…This is how it is for God’s chosen ones.

And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.  ~1 Peter 5:10

As He also did for Job.

~Selah