despair

When Job Is My Portion

~ Heather Davis ~ 6 Comments

This past Saturday, I woke to one of Tennessee’s typical grey winter days. After reading my morning portion of the Word, I caved in to my Aussie’s pleading stares and vocalizations. A quick check of the weather app assured me the looming clouds would not spill over for “at least 60 minutes,” nonetheless, I donned my rain gear and set off with the furry victor happily trotting at my side. Since my portion is in Job at present, it seemed appropriate to me to listen to said book while I walked to enhance my morning’s reading, and I decided to backtrack and listen from Job chapter 1.

The weather app lied.

About a half-mile into my walk, a misty drizzle started. It was fairly warmish and the drizzle was light, so I decided to keep going. Besides, my poor pooch had already missed several walks this winter due to my state’s bipolar weather and my own health issues. As I passed the lake, I noted my friend the limpkin still inexplicably hanging out at the water’s edge despite being a good 450-odd miles from the northern edge of his typical range – not to mention last week’s snowpocalypse.

He stared at me as I passed, possibly wondering why the crazy human trudges through the mist and still stops to snap photos of him. Good question. I moved on, listening to Job’s lament and feeling a bit dissatisfied with my choice. But I kept walking.

About halfway through my short route, the drizzle picked up to a light rain. By this time, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar had begun their potshots and part of my mind drifted to my own times of trial. The rain lent a dismal ambience to perfectly complement the audio.

When the light rain began to drift toward downpour, I debated the merits of fighting the rain for control over my phone’s screen to make a call. Instead, I put my head down and determined to finish the last 3/4 mile or so as quickly as possible. Then I saw movement. Through the raindrops coating my glasses, a familiar vehicle drew near.

My husband had noted the increase in damp and come to my rescue. Hallelujah!

The whole experience reminded me of a dark and dismal time in my life. Like Job, I’d lost a lot (though not all). The people I’d called “friend” abandoned me in my hour of need, and I felt myself alone, groping through a cold and misty waste with nowhere to turn. Then out of nowhere, as I trudged ahead in a grim and hopeless determination, my Rescuer appeared.

I found the Word of God – not just the Book but the Redeemer it speaks of: Yeshua Messiah, Jesus the Christ, Immanuel, God-With-Us. My Lord and my God. In my darkest hour, in abject fury and despair, I shouted my unbelief and unbelievably, He came to my rescue anyway.

He took me under the shelter of His wings and slowly began the work of healing my wounded heart, untwining the deeply-rooted sins that infected my soul, and cleaning up the mess I’d made. My journey since then has still had moments of despondency and pain, but I now have a safe and warm destination to look forward to.

Just as my husband picked me up and drove me home, my Lord and Savior is carrying me through the murk of life. And I know that someday, He will bring me Home. This is what I keep in mind when Job’s lot seems to be my portion. Even without the Book, Job himself clung to this hope and kept going.

My friend, so can you.

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.

(Job 19:25-26)

The Battle Within

~ Heather Davis ~ Leave a comment

Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.
Psalm 43:5

Oh, how I wish each step of this race could be joyful; filled with moments of awe and splendor and wonder. How I wish that I could run my race without the weight of the sin curse dragging at my heart and snatching the breath from my lungs. But this is real life, and David’s Psalm aptly expresses my real state of mind today.

One of my oldest enemies, the fiendish Despair, still dogs my heels from time to time as I labor on my course. Oh,though he is sly, I know him; I know his true name — it is Pride, dressed though he may be in a darker suit of self-focus. From time to time on deserted stretches of the track, my sinister stalker will fling the well-paired bolas of fatigue and pain, entangling my legs and causing me to sprawl ingloriously onto my face.

One would think I would learn to keep an eye out for him when the way is desolate… one would think.

Always, always it is the same setup: a few weeks of relentless pain, a sense of uselessness and failure, a realization that much of the past efforts I have given in ministry was  either  unheeded or unneeded. Too little sleep. Too much to do. A certainty of ineptitude made more concrete by the actions of others. The reality of being forgotten. The conviction that not only do I not belong, I have passed that quirk of not belonging on to my children. The very painful understanding that sometimes to be a sojourner on this earth means that I will sojourn alone.

Well, not entirely alone.

There is One who has promised never to leave me nor forsake me… not even when I allow my thoughts to fall into the familiar old iniquity of despondency.

There is my Shepherd who will be with me even in the valley of deepest darkness.

There is the Light for my path, even if it is just glimmer enough to see an inch or two of the way before me.

There is my great High Priest who can sympathize with my weakness, for He has been tempted in all ways that I have yet without my sin.  For in Gethsemane, I am certain that even He was tempted to give in to Despair… yet He fought on. And won.

So at times like this, I remember that my body is weak and prone to falter, but that my Savior is neither of these. Though I may feel cast down, discouraged, defeated, and useless; though I may not have the strength to fight, in Christ I can find the strength to stand. And I remember that the battle is not mine but the Lord’s.

When the horrible ache of being a person on the fringes threatens to swallow me in sorrow, I recall that I do belong — to the King of kings. That, too, I can pass to my children and together we can view this vast and often hostile territory with fresh eyes, cherishing its beauty and even loving those who unwittingly inflict pain because we remember that we are just passing through until the great Day of our final Homecoming.

So why are you cast down, O my soul? Rather, hope in God for I will again praise Him, for He is my King and His grace is sufficient for me.