Job’s Wife – The Lord understands depression

1. Job’s Wife – Introduction

2. Job’s Wife – Balaam’s Wise Utterance

The Lord our God created us. There is nothing in us that would surprise the Omniscient God. In His infinite wisdom, the Lord knows everything about us. We cannot hide anything from our Creator. Everything is naked before His eyes. Even from far off, He understands our thoughts. Even before we speak a word, even as it is formed in our tongue, the Lord knows. That’s why David says, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me” (Psalm 139:6, NKJV).

In His mercies, our Father in Heaven also understands depression. Whether it was Moses, the great prophet or David, the man after God’s own heart, they had suffered depression. Hope deferred makes the heart sick, declares Solomon (Proverbs 13:12, NKJV). Even the great heroes of faith suffered from depression, as things did not turn out as they expected. As time ran out, they had to endure their hearts losing their confidence.

In his utter depression, a broken-hearted Elijah pleaded with God to take his life as he was not better than his ancestors (1 Kings 19:4). And there is something we need to notice here. Though Elijah said that prayer in depression, the Lord never reprimanded him for that. More importantly, He did answer Elijah’s prayer: the Lord did take away Elijah, except not in the way the prophet wanted. This is our God. This is our Father in Heaven.

The Lord understands depression. When we utter certain things because we are depressed, He knows the broken heart behind those utterances. When we say few things that we would not normally say, our Father in Heaven knows that we are saying such things because we are downcast. What the Lord does not like, what He hates is murmuring against Him. But a broken-heart, the Lord does not despise. In face, the Lord is close to the broken-hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit (Psalm 34:18). Our Great Physician binds those who are heart-broken, and heals them.

Of course, the greatest depression we see is in the Garden of Gethsemane. Our Savior Jesus Christ came for one purpose – to die on the Cross, so that we are saved. Yet the night before, He suffered so much in his anguish, he sweat drops of blood (Luke 22:44). Our Teacher’s soul was so deeply grieved to the point of death, in His depression, He asked the Father “to remove that cup from Him.” But regaining His composure, He added, “Yet not what I will, but what You will” (Mark 14:36). Again God our Father did not reproach His Son for that prayer. Since we know that our Lord Jesus is without sin, His utterance “to remove that cup from Him” was not a sin.

It is in this light, we need to look at the utterance of Job’s wife. By the Spirit of God, hopefully, before we finish this series, we will be able to see that her ‘irate’ directive to Job was actually very similar to the prayer of Elijah, and to an extent, and I am saying this with utmost humility and trepidation, is similar to our Lord’s prayer asking that the cup be removed from Him.

But to reach that point, we need to understand one of the well-known words in the Bible; a word we all know well for nearly a decade now, thanks to the American politics.

One year later

On this very day last year, July 26th 2016, I was discharged from the hospital after 18 days. I was quite weak and enervated, but the entire trip back, I could not sleep a wink. I was praising the Lord and singing songs, as I was very sure that all my troubles and trials were over, that the things that the Lord has promised me were going to be fulfilled right away. Now, it has been one year and only recently my health has improved; even then, the humiliating circumstances I had to endure along with intense pain for weeks, this had to be one of the toughest years I had faced in my life.

On the other hand, this year also taught me more about my shortcomings than all the years I had lived so far. Sometimes, it has made me feel so ashamed to stand in the presence of God; at other times, it made me realize how great is His grace for us.

Though there were forward movement in my spiritual life, there is no movement in my life in other realms. It had become an epitome of “Be still” as my life has come to a stand still.

So this morning, when I woke up, I had mixed feelings. I am very grateful that the Lord has saved my life and for the last one year, through so many downs, He has lifted me up, taught me some very valuable insight about myself (though not so pleasant), and above everything, He filled me with His love. But since nothing has happened to my career, I was quite confused. And then the Lord, in His great wisdom, gave me this meditation, which has cheered me up. And, I am hoping that this meditation be a blessing unto another soul who has the same questions like I had. May the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ alone be exalted; and praises to God our Father Who loves us more than we can ever understand. The meditation is given below:

“For we through the Spirit by faith, wait for the hope of righteousness”
– Galatians 5:5. (RV)

There are times when things look very dark to me, so dark that I have to wait even for hope. It is bad enough to wait in hope. A long-deferred fulfilment carries its own pain, but to wait for hope, to see no glimmer of a prospect and yet refuse to despair; to have nothing but night before the casement and yet to keep the casement open for possible stars; to have a vacant place in my heart and yet to allow that place to be filled by no inferior presence – that is the grandest patience in the universe. It is Job in the tempest; it is Abraham on the road to Moriah; it is Moses in the desert of Midian; it is the Son of Man in the Garden of Gethsemane.

There is no patience so hard as that which endures, “as seeing Him Who is invisible”; it is the waiting for hope.

Thou hast made waiting beautiful; Thou has made patience divine. Thou hast taught us that the Father’s will may be received just because it is His will. Thou hast revealed to us that a soul may see nothing but sorrow in the cup and yet may refuse to let it go, convinced that the eye of the Father sees further than its own.

Give me this Divine power of Thine, the power of Gethsemane. Give me the power to wait for hope itself, to look out from the casement where there are no stars. Give me the power, when the very joy that was set before me is gone, to stand unconquered amid the night, and say, “To the eye of my Father it is perhaps shining still.” I shall reach the climax of strength when I have learned to wait for hope. – George Matheson