I Wish I Had Never Been Born

God-fearing people are not exempt from despair.

Over the weekend, Matthew Warren, the youngest son of Rick and Kay Warren, committed suicide. Rick Warren is perhaps best known for writing the all-time best selling non-fiction book titled, The Purpose Driven Life. For some time, Matthew had struggled with deep depression and suicidal thoughts. But on Friday, the emotional pain became too great for him to handle.

If you think that God-fearing people are somehow exempt from despair, you are mistaken. After her passing, people were shocked to learn how Mother Teresa struggled with feelings of doubt and despair. Martin Luther, the fiery leader of the Protestant Reformation, struggled through seasons of despair. In the Garden of Gethsemane, on the Friday night of his arrest, the gospel writer Matthew tells us that Jesus, "...was overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death." See Matthew 26:38 (NIV). In the original Greek the word overwhelmed means overwhelmed. We saw last Sunday how King David was overwhelmed with despair and said, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" See Psalm 22:1 (NIV).

Before King David, a righteous man named Job was overwhelmed with sorrow so much so he cried out to God in Job 10:1 (NIV), "I loathe my very life; therefore I will give free rein to my complaint and speak out in the bitterness of my soul." And in Job 10:8 (NIV) he said, "Your hands shaped me and made me. Will you now turn and destroy me?" Further, in Job 6:8-9 (NIV) he said, "Oh, that I might have my request, that God would grant what I hope for, that God would be willing to crush me, to let loose his hand and cut me off."

And Job laments further in Job 7:15-16 (NIV), "...I prefer strangling and death, rather than this body of mine. I despise my life; I would not live forever. Let me alone; my days have not meaning." "May the day of my birth perish, and the night it was said, 'A boy is born!' " he says in Job 3:3 (NIV)

In Job 10:18-19 (NIV) he says, "I wish I had died before any eye saw me. If only I had never come into being, or had been carried straight from the womb to the grave." Even Job's own wife eggs him on by telling him in Job 2:9 (NIV), "Curse God and die!"

Are suicidal thoughts unforgivable?

These are incredibly powerful emotions. If you are of the opinion that suicidal thoughts are unforgivable, you might read the story of Job. At the end of the book of Job, the suicidal Job repented and was fully pardoned by God. But God made Job's three friends offer sacrifices and plead with Job for forgiveness for not understanding, for misspeaking, and for acting arrogantly toward him in his time of despair.

Don't let people belittle you for feeling despair. No one can know what it's like to walk in your shoes except God himself, and this man named Job. If you are overwhelmed with sorrow, God gave you the story of Job to help you work through your feelings of despair. Read it!

I want to share some things I have found helpful when reflecting on the book of Job. Not everyone feeling despair asks the same question. In the beginning, a person asks what? What is going on? What is happening?

What is happening? (Adrenaline)

There are many different perspectives on suffering. There is the bystander's perspective. This is the person who sees what is happening to you firsthand, but isn't in your shoes. Job's wife, his family, his friends, and his servants all witnessed what happened to Job.

Then there is Job's perspective. One day Job was on top of the world. The very next day, a servant reported that a neighboring tribe had attacked, killing all of Job's servants, and carrying off his oxen and donkey. Then another servant told him how fire fell from the sky, killing all his sheep and the shepherds tending them. Then a third servant told him how another tribe attacked, stole all his camels, and slaughtered more servants. Then a fourth servant came and told Job how all his sons and daughters were killed by a whirlwind that destroyed the house where they were celebrating. In Job 2:7 he was afflicted with painful boils from the soles of his feet to the top of his head. His only comfort was to scrap his sores with a shard of pottery, and sit in ashes.

When stuff is happening, it's all adrenaline. In the beginning, it's impossible to get any kind of perspective on what is happening. It's just overwhelming. It feels like things are going to keep getting worse, and that the bad news will never stop coming. You're shell-shocked. You're on autopilot. You're hope is just to survive. You're left picking up the pieces, assessing the damage.

Last, there is God's perspective, and his perspective is altogether different from that of the bystanders or of Job. The book of Job actually begins by giving us a look behind the curtain, where Satan asks god for permission to test Job, and afflict him with pain. When we're in adrenaline mode, we're not really seeing things from God's perspective. In Job 1:21 (NIV) Job prays, "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised." In Job 2:13 (NIV) when his friends find him, they didn't utter a word. They just, "...sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was."

You might think of Job's response as premature praise. He was quick to praise God, but in reality, his despair was only just beginning to set in.

Why is this happening? (Doubt)

The best thing Job's friends did for him was to sit seven days and seven nights and not say a word. But in time, his friends began to speculate to his face as to why he was suffering. As much as anything, the book of Job is a virtual catalog of all the stupid things people believe and say when a person is hurting.

His friends told Job that his family got what they deserved because of their sin. They told Job everything happened because he sinned, because God was angry with him, and because God was trying to teach him a lesson. Even Job had a theory as to why God decided to smote him.

Allow me to give you some advice, whether it's you or another person who is going through a painful trial. Be quiet. Don't spew words without knowledge. Don't pretend to have the mind of God. Who are you, or who am I, to declare whether something is an act of God, an act of Satan, God's will, not God's will, God's discipline, God's wrath, or God's judgment?

Have you ever noticed how our answers to questions of why feel trite and unimpressive? This is because there are things, apart from God's direct revelation, that we may never fully understand on this side of glory. And pretending to know answers, and worse, speaking without knowledge, can be quite destructive.

When will it change? (Anger)

In addition to what and why, Job wrestles with when. "When is the Lord going to respond? How much longer will I suffer and my painful agony persist?" In Job 4:2 (NIV) his friend Eliphaz confronts him for being impatient. "If someone ventures a word with you, will you be impatient?" In Job 6:11 (NIV) Job asks, "What strength do I have, that I should still hope? What prospects, that I should be patient?"

With suffering comes the acknowledge that with God, a thousand years are like a day, and a day is like a thousand years. God's timeline isn't always our timeline. Yet what we learn is that God is perfect in all his ways, and in his timing.

In Job 19:25-27 (NIV) Job acknowledges that God's timing can be perfect even after death. Isn't this the essence of our Easter resurrection hope? Job says, "I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes-- I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!"

How do I survive? (Coping)

I wish I had a simple one or two step formula for surviving despair. When I read Job's story I notice two things. First, he never stopped talking with spiritual friends. Second, he never stopped talking to God. His conversation with God and his friends is earthy, raw, honest, informed and uninformed, Biblical and unbiblical, optimistic and pessimistic, hopeful and fatalistic, composed and uncomposed, intense and resigned. But his prayers never were simple. He never cursed God. He kept seeking wisdom, praying through the pain, and discerning God's will.

In Job 28:12-17 Job likened his search for understanding and wisdom to searching for gold and precious silver. You can find silver and gold on the earth. But the only way you can find understanding and wisdom is by seeking God in his holy place.

Who is God? (Faith)

In Job 32 a young man confronted Job for trying to justify himself, rather than justifying God. In other words, he confronted Job for focusing too much on himself and too little on God throughout all his suffering. For five chapters, Job 32-37 Elihu expounded upon the wonders of God. And then in Job 38:3 (NIV) the Lord finally spoke to Job and said to Job, "Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me."

God's questions for us are more significant than our questions to him. And his question for Job in Job 39-42 is, "Don't you know who I am? Can't you see all that I've done in creation? In creating you? Don't you know that I am sovereign? That I am in control? That I am faithful? That my ways are perfect?"

In Job 42:5-6 (NIV) Job says to God, "My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes." Job 42:12 (NIV) says, "The Lord blessed the latter part of Job's life more than the first." In Job 42:16 (NIV) it says, "Job lived a hundred and forty years; he saw his children and their children to the fourth generation."

My counsel to those of you who are going through despair is to pray! Pray through the adrenaline, no matter what happens. Pray through your doubts, even when you don't know the why. Pray through your anger and impatience, and trust in God's timing when. Pray through the roller coaster of emotion,discerning God's will how. Pray through God's word, asking God to show you who he is.