Job 19:1-29

Job’s greatest struggle was not how to go on without his flocks, his servants, or even his children. His greatest struggle was how to go on without God–at least without God as he once knew him: loving, kind, generous, and just.  Sometimes the hardest part of suffering is the way in which it messes with our understanding of God.  Is there yet a loving purpose and redemptive end for the sufferings we endure, or is God simply indifferent to us?  It’s hard to know what Job expected when he professed his faith in a living Redeemer (v.25ff); those words stand in such contrast to the rest of his lament, as though he’s clinging to the hope that what he once knew about God’s goodness is still true.  What we know is that Job spoke prophetically of the one Redeemer whose sufferings even Job could not have fathomed: Jesus Christ.  And just as God restores Job’s faith by the end of the book; so too is our faith fed by contemplating the beauty and joy he won through the ashes and despair of the cross.