Les Misérables

Job 13:16 -16:22

Our Preacher, Pastor Jack Schaap, refers to Job a lot in his book “Walking through the Valley of Depression and Grief.” If you have not read this book, I encourage you to do so;
1. For your own personal learning
2. To mentor other women going through a valley of Depression and Grief.

Page 44: “The self-pity stage is one of selfishness. No one wants to be around any person in the throes of a pity-party! Still, self-pity is as natural as the previous stages a hurting one has already passed.”

Job had turned from speaking to his friends, finding no purpose in reasoning with them, and here he goes on to speak to God and to himself.

He had reminded his friends of their frailty and mortality - 13:12; here he reminds himself of his own, and pleads with God for some mitigation (lessening) of his miseries.
We have here an account of;

I. Man's life
A. Short - 14:1. 2.
B. Sorrowful - 14:1. 3
C. Sinful - 14:4
D. Stinted - 14:5,14

II. Man's death
A. That it puts a final period to our present life, to which we shall not again return - 14:7-12
B. It hides us from the calamities of life - 14:13
C. Destroys the hopes of life - 14:18-19
D. Sends us away from the business of life - 14:20
E. Keeps us in the dark concerning our relations in this life, regardless of the care we have taken in them previously - 14:21-22.

III. The purpose
A. He pleads it with God, who, he thought, was too strict and severe with him - 14:16-17
B. He begs that, in consideration of his frailty, he would not contend with him - 14:3
C. He asks that God grant him some respite - 14:6. 2
D. He engages himself to prepare for death - 14:14
E. He encourages himself to hope that it would be comfortable to him - 14:15

Personal Observation
Have you ever risen to the occasion in defending someone, when everyone else was attacking their character? “Pack Behavior” is my only way of defining Job’s so-called friends. What were they thinking?

Job never returned the character assassination that he received! At any given time, he could have individually ran a forensic-analysis of each of their singular characters. Not forgetting, they individual and collectively attacked and defamed Jobs.

Pain is personified (from our feelings whilst alive) – is attributed to the flesh and soul. Job’s pain was personified and personalized through his own incredible pain – pain inflicted physically, and pain inflicted emotionally. Satan (under God’s permission), was personally responsible for both! The tools he used were the physical pain of suffering, and the psychological pain of suffering.

Eliphaz the Temanite (I call him “The Termite”), reproves Job – 15:1-16 “For thy mouth uttereth thine iniquity, and thou choosest the tongue of the crafty.” Job 15:5 The Hebrew definition of “crafty” is “cunning,” “subtle,” “prudent,” “cunning.” He basically accused Job of by trying to cover his hypocrisy with the appearance of piety.

Eliphaz accuses Job's pride and ingratitude---that will not be comforted by God, but by their counsel. “Isn’t anything I have said Job, of any value to you?”

When you have suffered great afflictions, you are most disposed and best prepared to sympathize with the afflictions and assuage (moderate) the grief of others. “But I would strengthen you with my mouth, and the moving of my lips should asswage your grief.” Job 16:5

What Job says of his friends is true of us all (in comparison with God); one time or other we shall be made to see and known that miserable comforters are most. When under convictions of sin, stirred conscience, or the arrests of death, only the blessed Spirit can comfort effectually; all others, without him, do it miserably, and to no purpose.

Whatever our Sister’s sorrows are, we ought by sympathy and empathy, to make them our own; - they may soon be so!

I have personally been challenged not to undervalue one-another's sense, wisdom, and management. Truth is never in a clear light when we follow unkind conduct.

How should I help others going through a trial of affliction?
1. I should say and do all I can to strengthen them; making suggestions to them that are proper and that will encourage their confidence in God---and to support their sinking spirits. Faith and patience are the strength of the afflicted!
2. I should ease their grief--the causes of their grief (if possible), or at least their resentment of those causes. Good words cost nothing; but they may be of good service to those that are in sorrow, not only as it is some comfort to them to see their friends concerned for them, but as they may be reminded of that which, through the predominance of grief - was forgotten!

Though hard words (we say) break no bones, kind words may help to make broken bones rejoice; and those who have the tongue of the learned know - how to speak a word in season to the weary.

“A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.” Proverbs 25:11

I love you,
Deborah