Hope Defined • Job 14:1-14
By Beth S. Bowman
This year has been the year for me to understand what we all have heard before: “When you hit age (fill in the blank), everything begins to fall apart.” I never understood that before this year. Last week, I really began to comprehend it as I went to a podiatrist appointment for plantar fasciitis, to an eye appointment (where the optometrist suggested bifocals), and I had to get my ears cleaned out because I couldn’t hear anything.
Ugh. All of this reminded me of the frailty of life and the reality that my body is not meant to last forever.
There is an expression that is popular today: “Life is short, and then you die.” A quick search on the Internet didn’t help me figure out who first said that, but it is a great summation of what Job said in chapter 14, verses 1-2. Job laments on the brevity of life and the frailty of mankind. This is Job’s response after all three of his friends had given their opinions of his situation. In all of his suffering, Job realized that God was the author and the finisher of all life.
I love verse three, when Job directly asks God, “Do you really take notice of one like this? (CSB).” There are times when we sincerely ask God if he is noticing us, if He is aware of our situation, and if He is continuing to work in our lives.
Job asked, “Who can bring what is pure from what is impure? (NIV)” He wanted to know how anyone could measure up to God’s standards. If his punishment was an act of God against his sin, Job knew that no one could ever be pure and sinless enough.
Welsh minister Matthew Henry (1662-1714) states, “Our habitual corruption is derived with our nature from our parents, and is therefore bred in the bone. Our blood is not only attained by a legal conviction, but tainted with an hereditary disease.” We were born into sin from the beginning.
Job recognizes in verses 5-6 that God had numbered his days. In fact, Job also states that God sets the limits and man cannot exceed or change what God has set into motion. The psalmist King David also talks about the inevitability of death when he said in Psalm 23:4, “Though I walk through the valley of death, I will fear no evil” (CSB).
Obviously in so many of the verses of Job, we see his uncertainty about the end of life. His struggle is one that is common to man. We, too, have faced uncertain days (COVID-19, for example) and wonder what God is doing. We have had questions similar to Job’s, but unlike Job our questions and restlessness have the backdrop of the resurrection of Jesus.
Job did not have the luxury of knowing salvation through Christ. He asked in verse 15, “If a man died, will he live again? I will wait all the days of my struggle until my change and release will come.” Whether God chose to change him through healing or release him to the afterlife with Him, Job would wait all the days of his struggle. His hope rested in God.
This is a great time to remind your class of the promises of the resurrection. We live in the shadow of what Jesus did for us on the cross and the beauty of His resurrection. 1 Corinthians 15:50-53 reminds us that we shall be changed into immortality at the resurrection, and Philippians 3:21 tell us “our bodies will be gloriously transformed.”
We don’t grieve as though without hope. Even though our bodies are wasting away, we can state with assurance the same thing the Apostle Paul states in 2 Corinthians 4:16, “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.” What hope we have in Jesus!
This daily renewal that God gives believers is the basis for the hope that we have. There is an afterlife. God has prepared a place for us as believers. It is the definition of our hope!
Bowman, a member of West Carthage Church, is a speaker/writer. She may be contacted at beth@bethbowman.net.
