a view through annie's eyes

I’ve just spent the last few days and eighteen chapters reading a lot of complaining, watching a man who appeared to have it all, the perfect family, respect in his community, and a lot of material wealth. Certainly by today’s standards, Job was a man’s man. Then, he lost it all, including his family. His wife hated to see her man suffer, his friends didn’t have a clue, but kept feeding Job platitudes and truths of God, but nothing comforted Job. They argue and Job is depressed, and they argue again, and Job whines, and wishes he were dead. But interspersed between what anyone would feel was a harsh and terrible plight for Job, he knows his only comfort is in God. I have to wonder if I could remain faithful through all of this. I stop and know I’d be a whiner, but I also pray that I could still look at God and rejoice. Then, in chapter 19, the beautiful promise Job proclaims brings me to tears this morning. While Job has lost everything dear and feels his friends have forsaken him just as His God has allowed him so much pain (Though He slays me, yet will I trust Him) … while he is physically in pain, knowing he’s dying, he says in verse 25

“For I know my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth.
And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God.”

These verses never had more meaning to me than this morning. After my skin has been destroyed—Job was in horrible physical pain, his flesh eaten up with boils, and he knows “yet in my (restored) flesh I will see God.” The Holy Spirit grabbed Job and gave him the hope he needed most. He’d redeem him. He had not forsaken him. I am in tears to think of Job and his feelings of total abandonment, yet surely through the comfort of the Holy Spirit, he was able to know that his Redeemer lives. Who more needed to know God not only as comforter but as his Redeemer, who would restore him and redeem Job’s suffering? Job needed to know it wasn’t in vain. He not only had a comforter who would hold his hand through the trial, but One who would make all things right.