Job 16:19-20 “Even now my witness is in heaven; my advocate is on high. My intercessor is my friend as my eyes pour out tears to God”
No matter how dark life becomes, within each person flickers a light of hope that cannot be extinguished…unless we let it.
No one knew trouble more than Job. You’re familiar with his story. Life has turned into one calamity after another for him. His wife tells him to “curse God and die” (Job 2:9). His friends falsely accuse him of sin and God’s silence thrusts him into confusion and greater despair than you or I will (hopefully) ever know. Job goes from proclaiming his unflinching trust in God to wishing he had never been born. He calls out, “Who can see any hope for me?” (Job 17:15). Even the grave, which would put him out of his misery, offers nothing but total darkness, his decayed body a meal for the worms (Job 19:26).
Yet reoccurring throughout his lament, we find a persistent spark of light that refuses to be completely diminished. He cries, “…my witness is in heaven; my advocate is on high. My intercessor is my friend as my eyes pour out tears to God.” Deep in Job’s spirit he knows there remains someone who hears his desperate plea and speaks on his behalf. Somewhere, somehow, he knows his Redeemer lives (Job 19:25).
God places that spark of hope in every human heart. It may be so dim we can’t distinguish it. We may have fallen so far off the path we think we’ve gone beyond its embers of help. But it probably takes less fanning than we think to cause that hope to once again burst into flame. Don’t give up. Our present suffering is not the end. Our Redeemer is our Defender. Our Intercessor is our Friend. There will come a day when all the bad will be made good, the wrongs made right, and anguishing tears made dry.
Friend, do you know your Redeemer lives? Do you know he will stand with you on that day? Don’t let whatever gut-wrenching circumstance you are facing kill your hope. Your pain may be great, but your Redeemer is greater. Put all your hope in him.
[Next week, Part 2, “Mock On”]