Job 3

Job had only one thing left.  He had his life, and he cursed the day of his birth.  Life had been precious to him, and now he saw it as a prison.  Seeing how much people suffer, it is no surprise that some philosophers envision death as an escape from that prison.  Socrates drank the poisin hemlock because he saw it as a means of escape from the trap that his body had become.  Job wanted escape as well, but his view of death was different than that of Socrates and Plato.  For Job, death was laying down, being quiet, and resting. It was joining the small and the great (everyone) in a place where there is no light, no consciousness.  It is easy to see why someone who has suffered as much as Job did would just want it all to end. Yet, God’s will was not death.  God’s will was recovery, restoration, resurrection.

This life is not always fair.  There will be times of suffering, and we may at times get so low that we wish for it all to end. One of the messages that this story gives us is that God is always there, and he will not give up on us. We should not give up on ourselves. Death is a curse upon humanity because of sin. When life seems a trap, the way out is not death.  It is eternal life, through Christ.

“It will happen in a moment, in the blink of an eye, when the last trumpet is blown. For when the trumpet sounds, those who have died will be raised to live forever. And we who are living will also be transformed” (1 Corinthians 15:52 NLT).