SCRIPTURE: Job 17
OBSERVATION/APPLICATION:
My spirit is crushed, and my life is nearly snuffed out. The grave is ready to receive me. I am surrounded by mockers. I watch how bitterly they taunt me. You must defend my innocence, O God, since no one else will stand up for me. [Job 17:1-3]
My days are over. My hopes have disappeared. My heart’s desires are broken. [Job 17:11]
Job’s despair is showing through again, he has given up hope.
His spirit is crushed from physical and emotional torment, he is ready to die.
Like Jesus, he is alone and unfairly accused, and looks to God to defend his innocence.
Then Jesus shouted, “Father, I entrust my spirit into your hands!” And with those words he breathed his last. When the Roman officer overseeing the execution saw what had happened, he worshiped God and said, “Surely this man was innocent. ” [Luke 23:46-47]

I am not sure how far to carry the comparison between Job and Jesus, but the similarity that I pick up here is that every hope that this life, this world, has to offer, has been taken away.
Both of them have been accused, attached, abandoned, and their spirit is crushed.
As Jesus entrusts His spirit to God, Job pleads for God to stand up for him, to defend him.
They’ve got nothing left, but God.

When people reject God, they abandon themselves to whatever this world has to offer.
Unfortunately this world – without God – is a miserable place.
The outcome of a world without God is physical, spiritual, emotional, mental and relational “death”.
Everything slowly begins to unravel – some manage to last for a long time, while others experience it sooner; but the unraveling of sin is the way of all flesh, it is unavoidable.
This is our condition without God in our lives.

God allows us to experience the ravages of our sinful choices, He allows us to taste what life is like without Him.
Little by little, all the things that we cling to fall apart, and we end up with nothing – except God.
God brings us to the end of our rope, so that we can reach out for His rope!
To the very end, God is trying to win us back by showing us what life is like without him.
When we reach the dark place of sin, sorrow and suffering, when things are most despairing, when we’ve got nothing left at all – we look up and we see Him there with us.

Jesus endured the ravages of sin, death and hell for us, with us, so that when everything else fails, He will be there to help.
When our spirit is crushed, when nothing else can help, then we might entrust our spirits to Him.
And He will say… finally!

PRAYER:
Lord, You do not want me to suffer. Suffering is the natural result of our separation from You. Thank You for refusing to stay separate, and for choosing to follow me through this misery so that I can reach out for You when I am at the end of me!