What if someone or something you love so deeply turns out to be something different? Turns out to disappoint you, deceive you.
How do you feel after you have worked so hard, given up so much, and built your whole life around him, her, or it, then that person or thing changes—or worse, abandons you?
It tears you to the core because—as in the case of marriage—the very centers of your being become conjoined.
Besides the pain of family loss, loss of property, and loss of health, I think perhaps one of Job’s biggest “pains” was that of a deep-set disappointment in God himself.
He knew from experience and from the teachings of whatever prophets and scriptures were in existence at the time that his God was a God of a certain character, who demanded a similar character of his people, his children.
And if Job didn’t have certain expectations of his God, his friends certainly seemed to know everything about the Almighty. Bildad proclaims, “Surely God does not reject one who is blameless” (Job 8:20). Later Elihu adds that “God does not act wickedly and the Almighty does not pervert justice” (Job 34:12).
I think the character they had all come to expect of God was one of love, fairness, providence, dependability, and communicativeness.
But, suddenly, God was none of these things. The God that Job had grown old trusting had changed overnight. His God had taken away his children, his wife (in a way), his home, his livelihood, his health, and his friends.
How would you feel? What would you do?
The great 17th-century English author John Milton, in his epic poem Paradise Lost has a heart-rending scene depicting Adam upon first seeing Eve after she had eaten the forbidden fruit. (Book 9, 886-916)
Adam is pictured as tending the garden—his daily work—as Eve approaches. The text implies that Adam could sense that something was wrong before Eve even began to speak. As Eve tried her best to make light of her actions, a “horror chill ran through [Adam’s] veins and all his joints relaxed.”
He had apparently been picking a garland of flowers for his beloved wife, but at her words the blossoms dropped from his hand, their petals scattering on the ground.
As Adam’s mind raced at the consequences of the action of his mate—his “fairest of creation,” he only pictured two possible ends. Knowing Eve was now subject to death, he must now either live forever alone or God would create for him another Eve.
But since they were now bone-of-bone and flesh-of-flesh, he saw neither option as acceptable and knew that her present, fallen state must of necessity become his as well.
“Some cursed fraud of enemy hath beguiled thee, yet unknown, and me with thee hath ruined; for with thee certain my resolution is to die.”
I believe this may have been the sentiment stirring in the heart and mind of Job towards God. Was Job thinking, “Has God suddenly become sinful? Are his ways now as untrustworthy and full of evil intent as any other human’s are?” If these were indeed his suspicions, and with his awareness of God’s omniscience, he may have even feared that God would read his mind and strike him down for sure.
Truly the pains of a body tortured with sores were magnified ten-times over by the pain of a heart tortured by such confusion.