The Churning

Job 30 recounts Job’s suffering again, Yet when I hoped for good, evil came; when I looked for light, then came darkness. The churning inside me never stops; days of suffering confront me.

I remember when we sold our first house and went to closing, so excited about our future new house we were building, only to find out the lady who bought our house backed out.  She was no longer interested.  And here we sat with no sale, and a new house to pay for. Our excitement swiftly ended because we hoped for the end of one payment and the beginning of a new one, to only end up with two houses – and not sure what to do.  And it only went downhill from there…for the next five years.  Churning is a great word – days of suffering with burglaries and fires and more – as we sat and wondered what went wrong with  our hope for our future.

That was nothing, compared to Job’s trials.  He had placed his hope in God only to see more evil arrive.  He had looked for the light, only to be blanketed by darkness.  And inside, he was churning.

Have you had that churning feeling?  It hurts, it stirs, and it won’t stop.

Jesus himself suffered more than all of us have ever suffered – and he too churned I’m sure – when his friends left him, His father forsook him, and he was left to die – on the cross.

But remember the resurrection?  Remember Job’s end?  Remember my own life, now that the past is gone?

God comes.  God delivers.  God stops the churning and restores the light and the hope.  That’s who He is.  And suffering only lasts for a moment, completes its work, and then we rise – because greater is He who lives in us than he who is in the world.