Job

Dear Prayer Partners,

     As you know I have gone through quite a time of not being able to sleep. I don't know if its a part of chemo or not. Some guys say the chemo makes them sleep and they sleep day and night. I think it is keeping me awake and there were times when I went a whole week with only one or two hours of sleep a day. I would get visits and couldn't even visit, I just sat there like a zombie. I am doing better now. I had to learn the language of psychiatrists. I found out there is not medication for sleeping. I started calling it anxiety. I saw the psyche internist in the hallway who was always asking me if I'm alright. I always said, "Yes". Then I decided to email the psyche department and I did. I told them about anxiety. They said they would get back to me and never did. Then I was called to psyche , I thought I would get help. It was for a different reason, they wanted me to do a living will. I told her about my trying to get an appointment with a psychiatrist. She asked what it was about. I said anxiety. She said, "Well, it takes a long time to get an appointment here. There are lots of people". That's when I became a not very nice guy. I told her, this prison psychiatry is a joke. "The only thing you guys are worried about is if someone wants to kill himself. Is that what you want to hear?" She said, "What are you anxious about?" (I laid it on pretty good.) I said, "I'm terminal with cancer, I was told three months ago I have three to six months to live, I can't tell that anybody here is doing anything about getting me out of here. I haven't slept for a week and I'm worn out. How much more do you want to know?" She said,"You need to talk to the head psyche man, he stands in the food line".

    I met the man in the food line and basically told him the same story. I said, "I need help now". That afternoon he sent a psychologist over to see me. She can't prescribe medicine, but said the Doctor of Psychiatry would see me the next week. She actually saw me the next day so they did get on it real quick. They have me on some medication they seem to think is really dangerous. I can't say it's any stronger than Tylenol PM. It gives me about four hours of sleep and that is a big relief.

   Anyway, one of those nights as I was lying awake all night, I was reading my Bible and I turned to Job. I wondered, who should read Job? I never read the book in one sitting, maybe I should read it now. I can't sleep, I'm losing weight, I've got sores all over my body from chemo, I have strangers living in my house, this sounds kind of like Job. Maybe I should read this now.

    Now I want to warn you in advance this is not to emote sympathy from any of you. I want to pull some verses from Job that I felt I related with that night. Don't feel sorry for me, don't cry for me. That's not the way I felt. I was just trying to find the purpose that God had in putting that book in the Bible. Keeping that in mind, this is what I underscored to write about.

This is the best part of Job, right here for me. I love it to think that God does look down on us at times with the sons of God and the principalities of heaven and looks on us to be satisfied as he was with Job.

Job 1:9 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord and Satan also came among them. The Lord said to Satan, "From  where have you come?" Satan answered the Lord and said, "From going to and fro on the earth from walking up and down it". And the Lord said to Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from Evil?" Then Satan answered the Lord and said, "Does Job fear God for no reason? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and have increased  in the land, but stretch forth your hand and touch all that he has and he will curse you to your face"?  And the lord said to Satan, "Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand." so Satan went from the presence of the Lord."

When I teach, I always point this conversation out to students, just to think there are conversations like this taking place in heaven is so amazing to me. I think they still go on. I don't think this was a one-time situation. The story goes on, Satan attacks Job's health and his family and it gets worse. Job's friends come to him and say things to him which are accusing of him. I don't relate and haven't underscored much of what Job's friends said because I have not found that to be true in my case. My friends have all been so supportive of me, so I skimmed a lot of that. However, I don't think Job's friends were out to be nasty or hurt him. I think they were just trying to figure out how things could turn against him so fast. It's hard to understand why this is happening. So my friends may have had thoughts of this too because even I can't figure out how things could happen so fast, to go from so much to nothing. Maybe my friends have had thoughts of trying to figure it out that haven't gotten to me.

     Of course, I'm not as innocent as Job, but I see Job might not have been righteous on his own either other than the righteousness that Christ gave him because he was concerned for how his children were living and he felt responsible for that. 1:13: "Now there was a day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house and there came a messenger to Job and said-----    Job was concerned about his children's "eating and drinking" because in 1:4 his sons used to go and hold a feast in the house of each one on his day, and they would send and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. And when the days of the feast had run their course, Job would send and consecrate them and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, "It Just may be that my children have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts, "Thus Job did continually". Notice he said "It just may be".  This does free me to identify with Job.

    V4 Then Satan answered the Lord and said, "Skin for skin! All that a man has he will give for his life. But stretch out your hand and touch  his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face.  And the Lord said to Satan, "Behold he is in your hand; only spare his life".

     7:1 Has not man a hard service on earth, and are not his days like the days of a hired hand? Like a slave who longs for the shadow, and like a hired hand who looks for his wages, so I am allotted months of emptiness, and nights of misery are apportioned to me. When I lie down I say, when shall I rise?  But the night is long and I am full of tossing till dawn. My flesh is clothed with worms and dirt, my skin hardens, then breaks out afresh, my days are swifter than a weavers shuttle and come to their end without hope".

     Remember that my life is a breath my eye will never again see good. The eye of him who sees me will behold me no more; and while your eyes are on me, I shall be gone.

     Verse 11: Therefore I will not restrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. v13 When I say, "My bed will comfort me, my couch will be as my complaint, then you scare me with dreams and terrify me with visions so that I would choose strangling and death rather than my bones. I loath my life; I would not live forever. Leave me alone, for my days are a breath. What is man, that you make so much of him and that you set your heart on him. V20 If I sin, what do I do to you, you watcher of mankind: Why have you made me your mark? Why have I become  burden to you? Why do you not pardon my transgression and take away my iniquity?

     10:2 I will say to God. Do not condemn me; let me know why you contend against me. Have you eyes of flesh? Do you see as man sees? Are your days as the days of man, or your years as a man's years, that you seek out my iniquity and search for my sin? Your hands fashioned and made me. and now you have destroyed me altogether. Remember that you have made me like clay and will you return me to the dust? You clothes me with skin and flesh and knit me together with bones and sinews. You have granted me life and steadfast love. and your care has preserved my spirit. Yet these things you have hid in your heart. I know that it was your purpose. If I sin, you watch me and do not acquit me of my iniquity. If I am guilty, woe to me! If I am in the right, I cannot lift up my head for I am filled with disgrace and look on my affliction.

    12:4 I am a laughingstock to my friends; I, who called to God and he answered me, a just and blameless man am a laughingstock.

   V13 With God are wisdom and might; he has counsel and understanding. If he tears down, none can rebuild; if he shuts a man in, none can open. With him are strength and sound wisdom.

    13:20 Only grant me two things; then I will not hide myself from your face; withdraw your hand far from me, and let not dread of you terrify me. Then call and I will answer; or let me speak and you reply to me. How many are my iniquities and my sins? Make me know my transgressing and my sin.

    14:14 If a man dies shall he live again? All the days of my service I would wait till my renewal should come. You would call and I would answer you; You would long for the work of your hands. for then you would number my steps; you would not keep watch over my sin. My transgression would be sealed up in a bag and you would cover my iniquity.

     17:1 My spirit is broken; my days are extinct; the graveyard is ready for me. Surely there are mockers about me and my eye dwells on their provocation. He has made me a a byword of the people and I am one before whom men spit. My eyes have grown dim from vexation and all my members are like  shadow. The upright are appalled at this and the innocent stirs himself up against the godless.

    19:20 Oh that my words were written oh that they were inscribed in a book; Oh that with an iron pen and lead they were engraved in the rock forever! For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. and after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold and not another. My heart faints within me.

To be continued: