the Third Week after Easter
Click to donate today!
Daily Devotionals
Day by Day Devotional - Year 3 of 5
Job 19:1-20
"How long?" Bildad had asked (Job 18:2). "How long" . . . replies Job in a heated tone. Indeed this "dialogue between deaf people" where each is pursuing his own idea could go on for ever. "Job thinks that God is against him without reason; his friends think that God is against him with reason. In fact they are all wrong; God is for Job" (AG) (cf. Lamentations 3:1).
We who are, for the most part, surrounded by the love and understanding of our families – and how much more from the supreme Friend – let us think how alone Job must have felt in such suffering without being able to open his heart to anyone. Vv. 13-19 are a poignant echo of this feeling of solitude, especially great since he thinks God is against him. "He hath also kindled his wrath against me", he cries (v. 11). No, Job! The divine anger deserved by you and me fell on Someone else who took our place. Those who belong to Jesus will never know this anger.
With the abandonment by God before Him, Christ was not able to share His suffering with anyone. He was misunderstood by everyone and deserted by His own (Mark 14:37; Mark 14:50). In suffering which never had an equal, no one was ever as alone as He.
