SCRIPTURE: Job 30
OBSERVATION/APPLICATION:
Did I not weep for those in trouble? Was I not deeply grieved for the needy? So I looked for good, but evil came instead. I waited for the light, but darkness fell. My heart is troubled and restless. [Job 30:25-27]
Poor Job: at one time everyone honoured him as a godly man, and now even the dregs of society mock him and spit on him as worthless, an outcast.
Though his heart was devoted to God, and to loving and helping people, his life has become a joke.
I have known Jesus-followers who experienced the same crisis – they devoted themselves to following Jesus and doing His work in the world, and who ended up despised and defeated, and object of scorn and laughter.
I think of one person who gave up everything to do mission work in a foreign country, and no matter how much he loved and sacrificed, he did not see any results – in fact the opposite, he was ridiculed by the people he served and abandoned by his supporters back home.
I can imagine him saying: So I looked for good, but evil came instead. I waited for the light, but darkness fell. My heart is troubled and restless. [Job 30:26-27]

But the time is coming—indeed it’s here now—when you will be scattered, each one going his own way, leaving me alone. Yet I am not alone because the Father is with me. I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world. [John 16:32-33]
Jesus could relate to this as well – ridiculed by those He came to serve and abandoned by His supporters.
In this world, while fulfilling His mission from God, He has many trials and sorrows.
Looking for good, He experiences evil; waiting for light He is crushed by darkness; His heart becomes troubled and restless [Mark 14:33, John 12:27].
But in the midst of His “trials and sorrows”, He clings to God.
When He is abandoned by everyone else, He is comforted because the Father is with Him.
Job does not feel this; he feels abandoned by God and everyone else; but Jesus does not feel abandoned by God, even when everyone else abandons Him.

Jesus is very clear that life in this world will include trials and sorrows – that Job’s experience will be shared by many – so that they will not give up.
He wants to give them a sense of peace no matter how hard this life is; it is not the kind of peace the world thinks about – the absence of tension, hardship, misery – but an eternal peace, an eternal confidence that no matter what happens, Jesus has overcome it!
I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid. [John 14:27]

If Jesus were speaking to Job today, He would encourage him not to give up on God even though it seemed that God gave up on him.
He would encourage Job that He also went through “trials and sorrows” like Him, but that He overcame them for us, so that we can overcome them with Him!
He would encourage Him with a different kind of peace, a deep inner peace that is not dependent on the circumstances of this life but anchored in God’s never-failing, eternal presence and love.
If Jesus were speaking to you today, He would say, Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world. [John 16:33]

PRAYER:
Lord, grant me this deep peace and confidence that no matter what happens in this world, to me or to others, that You have overcome the world, and therefore one day I will overcome with You!