Or like a miscarriage which is discarded, I would not be, As infants that never saw light.

Our text tells us of another man who wished he were dead. Except for Christ, no other man in human history suffered more than Job. Job lost everything he had within a matter of minutes. He lost his considerable wealth and a large family (with the exception of his wife). To compound his problems, his wife became bitter about life. Job lost his health to wallow in a horrible physical misery. The first words Job speaks to his friends are words of despair. He cursed the day he was born.

The message of Job is that of trust. Through the extreme situation of Job, we learn that no matter what God allows into our lives, whether good or evil, we can trust God. This means that we must be alive if we are to demonstrate to others the goodness of God in our lives and our trust in Him. The lesson we learn from Job’s desire for death is life is worth living.

Despite Job’s despair, he realized that life was indeed worth living. If we skip ahead to Job 42, we see how Job was blessed for his faithfulness to God. “10The LORD restored the fortunes of Job when he prayed for his friends, and the LORD increased all that Job had twofold. 11Then all his brothers and all his sisters and all who had known him before came to him, and they ate bread with him in his house; and they consoled him and comforted him for all the adversities that the LORD had brought on him. And each one gave him one piece of money, and each a ring of gold. 12The LORD blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning; and he had 14,000 sheep and 6,000 camels and 1,000 yoke of oxen and 1,000 female donkeys. 13He had seven sons and three daughters. 16After this, Job lived 140 years, and saw his sons and his grandsons, four generations.”1 Job suffered in an extreme way, but if he had not lived, he would not have seen the wondrous blessing of God.

What are your thoughts on this verse?

Have you ever wished you were dead (although you were not suicidal)?

What kinds of problems made you think in such a despairing way?

What blessings did you see after such despair?