Day 201 - Why was I even Born?

Today's Reading: Job 3-4 and Luke 14

In today's reading we see Job overwhelmed with discouragement. And so he begins to curse the day he was born. He's not cursing God, mind you, but he's asking, "Oh if only I had never been born. It would have been so much better."

Why does he feel this way? He has lost all it seems... as the Scripture says: "For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid is come unto me." Job 3:25

Job's experience is not unique as he struggles to grapple with such overwhelming pain. We've all asked the same questions during certain dark moments of our life. "Why am I even alive? Why did God even bring me into the world if this was going to be the result? Oh... if only I had never been born."

In Prophets and Kings we find the following, encouraging and comforting thoughts:

"Into the experience of all there come times of keen disappointment and utter discouragement—days when sorrow is the portion, and it is hard to believe that God is still the kind benefactor of His earthborn children; days when troubles harass the soul, till death seems preferable to life. It is then that many lose their hold on God and are brought into the slavery of doubt, the bondage of unbelief. Could we at such times discern with spiritual insight the meaning of God’s providences we should see angels seeking to save us from ourselves, striving to plant our feet upon a foundation more firm than the everlasting hills, and new faith, new life, would spring into being." (p. 162) 

"Despondency may shake the most heroic faith, and weaken the most steadfast will. But God understands, and He still pities and loves. He reads the motives and the purposes of the heart. To wait patiently, to trust when everything looks dark, is the lesson that [all] in God’s work need to learn. Heaven will not fail them in their day of adversity. Nothing is apparently more helpless, yet really more invincible, than the soul that feels its nothingness, and relies wholly on God." (p. 174, 175)

We may falter in our faith.... we may cry out in discouragement, "Why was I even born?" but God still pities and loves... although sometimes we fall in heaps of discouragement, He has not forsaken. He is bending very near even when all we see is darkness...

Tomorrow's Reading: Job 5-6 and Luke 15