Expressing grief and complaints to God – Job 7:1-21

Good morning church! Hope you’re well. If you’ve been tracking with us, you’d be aware that we’re going through a series titled God’s blessing in suffering from the book of Job.

This might seem like a strange title to many of us because blessing and suffering are generally understood as opposite things. Even when we refer to the seasons of life, we’ll say “we’re going through a season of blessing” or we’ll say that “we’re going through a season of suffering”. We’ll usually never say “I’m going through blessing and suffering at the same time”.

So that’s the dilemma of this book. Why are we calling it “God’s blessing in suffering”? It’s because everything that happens in our life has God’s divine purpose behind it. Even when we’re going through tremendous, unbearable suffering, even that has God’s long term purpose behind it. And that’s what we’ve been discovering through this book.

This morning we’re picking up our study from Job 7. And  heads-up for all of us: some of the things that we’ll read and hear this morning might shock us, it might be a little intense. And it might also leave us wondering if brother Job has crossed the line and said things that he shouldn’t be saying.

But let’s understand that Chapter 7 is part of an ongoing conversation between Job and his friends and between Job and God in the aftermath of him losing all his 7 precious children, losing all that he had and being covered with a severe physical affliction from head to toe. A lot of what he’s expressing is a venting out of his heart – the pain is so unbearable that he can’t keep it inside, he has to let it out.

How do we make sense of passages like these? How can God’s people be instructed through these passages of “venting”? Many of the other passages in Scripture are almost like “classroom or seminar” teachings for us where Paul or Peter or Moses are instructing us on “Who God is? What are we supposed to believe? and how are we supposed to live?”

But passages like Job and some of the Psalms are more like “counselling sessions” where the people involved are expressing their grief and pain and confusion. And as people who are listening to them, we’re not called to form a bible doctrine out of this, or mainly emulate them at this point. We’re called to listen patiently (even through some of the shocking things they will say), and then at the end of the counselling session filter them out with the truths of Scripture. 

So that’s what we’re going to do over the next few weeks. We’ll try and understand what Job is saying, and then at the end of the sermon we’ll close out with some practical application points for us to take back with us.

The title of today’s sermon is Expressing grief and complaints to God. In today’s passage we see it done in 4 ways:

1. Expressing hardship (V1-5)

[1] “Has not man a hard service on earth, and are not his days like the days of a hired hand?

[2] Like a slave who longs for the shadow, and like a hired hand who looks for his wages,

Due to Job’s immense suffering, he views human life as one where we are assigned or appointed into hardship or forced labor or slavery. When we think about forced labor or slavery, images of oppression, tiring work under the hot sun, painful struggle – that’s what comes to mind.

Another comparison he uses is one of a hired servant. He views his entire lifetime as one of a hired servant. Someone who is bound to work until he receives his pay at the end of the day (daily wage worker) or at the end of the year. This is coming from a person who at one time had so many hired servants working under him.

And in V2, just like a forced laborer / slave who longs for the evening shadow – for relief from the heat once the sun goes down, just like the hired servant anxiously waits for his payment to be handed to him, Job waits for not a joyful, expectant reward but the end of life because that’s what he feels will give him relief and escape from his present unbearable suffering.

[3] so I am allotted months of emptiness, and nights of misery are apportioned to me.

In his mind, Job’s life has been ordained to be empty and useless. God has allotted months (a long time) of emptiness and uselessness. Many nights of misery & weariness have been assigned to him.

[4]  When I lie down I say, ‘When shall I arise?’ But the night is long, and I am full of tossing till the dawn.

In this verse, we see that he struggles with sleeplessness and insomnia. He tries to lie down to sleep, but he spends the entire night tossing and turning on the bed. There’s a lot of anxious thoughts running through his mind. There’s a lot of sadness and grief that he’s carrying in his heart which makes it difficult for him to sleep at night.

[5] My flesh is clothed with worms and dirt; my skin hardens, then breaks out afresh.

If we go back to Job 2, we understand that he was also afflicted with loathsome sores all over his body. These were extremely painful boils and ulcers on his body.

And the effect of that is what we see in chapter 7:5 which tells us that his body was covered with worms or some other versions say maggots and dirt. And his skin formed scabs and open wounds. I know some of this is hard to hear and even think of but this gives us a picture of the extreme hardship that Job experienced. It wasn’t just his emotional and mental trauma, it was extremely physical as well where his every single moment could only be described with pain and suffering. 

But not only did he express hardship, but he also

2. Expressing hopelessness (V6-10)

6] My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle and come to their end without hope.

Weaver’s shuttle is a tool used while weaving with a loom. It’s passed back and forth quickly while weaving and Job says that his days on earth pass away more quickly than that and come to an end without hope. Again he’s talking about the end of his life. He’s not seeing any light at the end of the tunnel.

[7] “Remember that my life is a breath; my eye will never again see good.

The NIV translates it as Remember O God. So we know that this is a conversation that he’s having with God. He’s telling God “Remember that my life is so short lived that it is like a mere breath”. 

And yet Job is convinced that in this short life, this tragedy is beyond repair and cannot be redeemed. He thinks that he will never again see anything good. NIV says that he will never again see happiness.

[8]  The eye of him who sees me will behold me no more; while your eyes are on me, I shall be gone.

[9] As the cloud fades and vanishes, so he who goes down to Sheol does not come up;

This is how quickly he anticipates the end of his life. Just like how clouds don’t last forever, they dissipate or vanish (some within a few minutes and some might take a few months), Job’s expecting his death soon after this.

[10] he returns no more to his house, nor does his place know him anymore.

Once a person goes to the grave, he’s not coming back to the house in which he’s lived all his life. That’s not going to be his permanent residence anymore.

That is a true fact. We spend so much of our life trying to build a beautiful home to live in. Trying to make it as comfortable and luxurious as it can be only to realize that this is simply a temporary residence. Once we go to the grave, then the reality is that we won’t ever get to go back to our home again nor will it continue to be our permanent residence.

In these verses, we can sense the hopelessness that he’s experiencing and expressing. But not just that, he is also

3. Expressing heartache (V11-16)

[11] “Therefore I will not restrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.

And so because Job sees his life in its final chapter with nothing more to look forward to, he’s going to not remain silent but has decided that he’s going to vent out his grief. He’s not going to hold back anymore. He’s going to pour out his great pain. He is going to open up on his deep dissatisfaction and discontentment to God.

[12] Am I the sea, or a sea monster, that you set a guard over me?

Job is asking God “God, are you viewing me as a terrifying sea monster or a terrible character which is why You’ve put me under surveillance? Why have You put up barriers on all sides so that I’m made to feel like a fearful terrorist or dreadful criminal?”

[13]  When I say, ‘My bed will comfort me, my couch will ease my complaint,’

[14] then you scare me with dreams and terrify me with visions,

It’s a medical fact that good sleep significantly helps to reduce stress, anxiety and also boost our mood. God has designed rest for that purpose, and so Job expected that at least getting some rest on his bed would give him some comfort and relief but that was not the case. He was getting nightmares instead.

[15] so that I would choose strangling and death rather than my bones. [16] I loathe my life; I would not live forever. Leave me alone, for my days are a breath.

This is obviously a very dark thought which has come up in his mind where he’s been sleep deprived for many days after all that he’s lost and all that has happened to him. All of this makes death more desirable to him over having to survive each and every day.

Not only is there hardship, hopelessness and heartache, he is also

4. Expressing the feeling of harassment (V17-21)

[17]  What is man, that you make so much of him, and that you set your heart on him,

[18]  visit him every morning and test him every moment?

[19] How long will you not look away from me, nor leave me alone till I swallow my spit?

When we read V17, it sounds very similar to Psalm 8:4

[4]  what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?

Where the Psalmist is amazed and praising God for his mercy over insignificant beings like us. But that’s not what Job is saying here. When Job is saying this, he’s not saying it out of amazement and praise, he’s saying it out of frustration. He’s telling God “why are you after me? Why are you visiting me every day only to punish me? Why don’t you leave me alone for a single second (till I swallow my spit) ?”

For Job at this point, God’s presence is no longer comforting but seems like a punishment because everytime He thinks that God is coming close to Him, he feels that God only wants to punish him.

So he’s questioning God’s goodness and his character. We see how Job’s view of God is impacted by his own personal experience. His personal experience is now coloring the way He looks at God’s goodness rather than viewing God on the basis of what He knows to be true of God.

[20] If I sin, what do I do to you, you watcher of mankind? Why have you made me your mark? Why have I become a burden to you?

[21] Why do you not pardon my transgression and take away my iniquity? For now I shall lie in the earth; you will seek me, but I shall not be.”

Job’s dilemma seems to be trying to understand what he did to deserve this suffering? If it is a sin issue, then why doesn’t God clearly tell him what is the sin that Job has committed against God? He wonders why he is being targeted? Why is God treating him like a giant burden?

And if sin is the reason behind this suffering, then Job’s question is why doesn’t God forgive his sins and cover his guilt?

But the thing is that because God is Holy and Just, He can’t just overlook the sin and simply forgive it. It’ll be like a Judge who just pardons a terrorist because he apologized. That’s not justice. Some payment would need to be made equal to the offense committed for it to be called justice.

Now we know from Job 1 that there was some understanding of burnt offerings for sin where he offered it for his children. But he didn’t have the benefit that we have as believers in Jesus on this side of the cross. We know how seriously God viewed our sin because He sent His one and only Son to sacrifice Himself on the cross so that our entire mountain size debt could be paid and through that we could freely receive God’s forgiveness and pardon.

So yes, in this entire chapter Job openly expresses his hardship, his hopelessness, his heartache and his feeling of harassment. So where do we go from here? How do we apply this passage?

1. God permits us to express our grief and our complaints to Him. He gives us the space to come to Him and honestly express our grief and complaints. God could very well tag a lot of these complaints of Job as disrespectful and demeaning and shut the door on Job.

He could also threaten to consume Him in anger because he dared to accuse God. But it’s interesting that God doesn’t choose to do any of that, but instead like how God says in Isaiah, he says “Come reason with me”. What a wonderful privilege you and I have?

2. Expressing grief doesn’t give us the license to take matters into your own hands. That’s the other thing we need to understand clearly as we read into the dark emotions and thoughts of Job. Job is venting out his grief and complaints to God, but he’s not using that as a license to actually take his own life or for that matter to abandon God because God hasn’t lived up to his expectations.

That’s not the purpose of these chapters. We need to honestly open up to God and God gives us that space, but that doesn’t give us a license to act upon those dark emotions and thoughts because we’re still acknowledging God’s rule over our lives. 

3. We need God’s church to help us navigate & filter through our grief and complaints. When we go through extreme unbearable suffering and express it, sometimes we can sound like unbelievers where our responses may shock ourselves and others.

But that’s why we have the blessing of our church community to help us filter our complaints, grief and doubt & weigh that with the truth of God’s Word. What suffering people need the most is to know the truth of who God is which will help them to trust God in those moments. “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God – (Rom 10:17)”.

4. God’s purpose in our suffering can be much more bigger than what we can think or imagine. We have the benefit of knowing the background story that Job and his friends weren’t aware of at that point. He thought God was purposely punishing him, when the truth was that God was honoring him above all. Spurgeon once said this “I would be quite content to take Job’s afflictions if I might also have Job’s grace, and Job’s place in the Church of God.”

There are things that happen in the background which we have no idea about. Who knows if God is using our suffering with some big long term purpose that we’ll only understand in eternity?