9:14-20
Job is expressing his despondence again. He believes God is just and pure. It is not possible to argue with Him because He is perfect. He is God. All Job can do is beg for mercy. Job is in despair. He believes the good are not ‘punished’ as he believes God is doing to him. So he does not believe God would listen to him if he pleaded his case to Him. Instead he believes God will crush him.
As an abused, unloved, child I begged God for relief from my circumstances. I begged for love from my family, but it never came. I believed good things would not happen to me because God wanted me to have a horrible life. Nice lives were for those blessed with wonderful, loving families. Unloved, unwanted things like me were not intended to ever have good things happen. As an adult I continued to believe that bad things would happen to me because God did not want me to have good things.
The thing is I had plenty of blessings, but the poison from my family was such that I was never able to see them. All I could see was the negativity my family emphasised in my life. I was always afraid when God gave me something good, like my children, that He would take them away. I was frightened because I lacked trust in God. After all, He never relieved my suffering as a child. My mother died hating me. My father continues his words of hatred and my siblings continue the abuse.
I don’t know why that happened but I know God loves me and has blessed me in some places and said no in others. When I ask for healing, He gives it. I do know my suffering has allowed me to reach out to others from abusive childhoods to help them heal. To understand and empathise. Like Job, I don’t always believe God wants good things for me, but I know that is not true. I can relate to Job’s despair. It is hard and it would have been easier for him if he had the support of his friends and did not cling to the belief that bad things are a punishment. The truth about bad things is sometimes they just are. There is no reason. But there is God, loving and supporting us through those times and that should be enough.
