Falling Into Frustration
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Frustration: the feeling that though a problem is not resolved, it should be
Frustration is a very real thing. If you have kids, then you know this to be true. Parents, how many times do you have to tell your children something before it really sinks in? It is our children’s job to set the table. One of the kids sets the plates and the cups, and another sets the silverware and gets the water. This seems like pretty straightforward instructions right? You would not believe how many meals we sit down to and guess what- no cups. Or we have cups, but no water (By the way do you know what you call cups without any water on the table? Decorations.) No you would think that after telling my boys literal over 100 times that they need to put cups and water on the table for every meal that they would have gotten it down by now right? That is frustration. Frustration: the feeling that though a problem is not resolved, it should be
In chapter 7 we see Job falling into frustration.
Initially Job responded amazingly well to the gigantic levels of suffering he was faced with.
And said,
Naked came I out of my mother’s womb,
And naked shall I return thither:
The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away;
Blessed be the name of the Lord.
But now months have most likely passes since Job’s testing, and Job is still sitting in misery and his responses sound very different.
So am I made to possess months of vanity,
And wearisome nights are appointed to me.
Job’s lot has now become months of vanity. And notice Job was made to possess vanity. Who do you suppose Job credits as the one who who made all of this happen to him? God. Notice also weary nights are appointed- again by God to Job (or so he feels).
Is Job wrong? Remember God is not the cause of Job’s suffering. Satan is the one who caused all of the things that happened in Job’s life, but God did allow it to happen. And God has allowed it to continue for months in the life of Job. After months of enduring emptiness and misery Job has succumb to frustration.
Here in Job chapter 7 we find two primary causes of frustration.
I. We get frustrated when we believe things should happen according to our own timing.
I. We get frustrated when we believe things should happen according to our own timing.
A. Job’s Altered Sense of Time
A. Job’s Altered Sense of Time
Notice first that Job’s life drags by and all he can do is endure each day.
Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth?
Are not his days also like the days of an hireling?
As a servant earnestly desireth the shadow,
And as an hireling looketh for the reward of his work:
So am I made to possess months of vanity,
And wearisome nights are appointed to me.
Here Job likes his experience of time to that of the hired laborer and the slave. Both are forced to do difficult demeaning tasks- the idea is forced hard labor. And for what? The slave receives no wage simply the ability to rest in the cool shade at the end of the day. The hired laborer does at least get a wage although it is a paltry sum. The idea is that the time of the day slows down to a crawl and all the laborers can think about is the rest awaiting them at the end of the day’s work.
I can remember working at the lumber yard for a summer after I graduated from college. We used to work 6 10 hour days. One of the projects that they had us work on was taking apart an old rail road track. Now imagine working in 90 to 100 degree weather all day prying and moving large pieces of hot heavy iron. Do you think that time flew by, or did it drag on? Days went so slowly, all I could do was just endure one hour after the other.
Look at v. 3 Job is saying I feel like that, by at least the slave gets shade and the laborer his wage. All I get is months of vanity (emptiness) and nights of weariness.
Job has nothing to look forward to, not even a good night’s sleep.
When I lie down, I say,
When shall I arise, and the night be gone?
And I am full of tossings to and fro unto the dawning of the day.
My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust;
My skin is broken, and become loathsome.
(1) He looks forward to the end of the day when he may sleep/rest.
(2) But he cannot sleep, so he then wishes for the day.
(3) He is caught in an endless cycle of this agony (3-4).
(4) Furthermore, “the night passes so slowly that in its stillness he becomes conscious of every pain in his body. In the morning light Job discovers that worms have bred in his sores. Hard scabs have crusted around the sores on his skin, only to break and ooze, leaving his skin painfully raw.” (Hartley, 145).
When Jonathan does not cooperate and Sharon has to get up multiple times a night to feed him, the next morning she stares at me blurry eyed and asks, “Is it time for bed yet?” She is longing for the end of the day so she can finally get some rest.
But have you ever gone to bed, and sleep just would not come? So you lay there tossing and turning all night staring at the clock, and all you want is for morning to arrive.
This is were Job is at, and to make things worse in the morning he discovers worms in his sores, and painful cracking scabs on his skin.
So Job’s days and his nights drag on endlessly.
But it also seems to Job that his life is flying by too quickly.
My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle,
And are spent without hope.
Weaver’s shuttle- example
The Book of Job (a) A Description of Great Pain (7:1–6)
Nevertheless, during the slow, agonizing nights, memories of his past make him sadly aware that his days are passing far too swiftly. The speed with which one’s life passes is similar to the rapid movement of a weaver’s shuttle as it flies back and forth across the loom. Soon the cloth is finished and the thread (tiqwâ) is cut to separate the cloth from the loom. Like the flying shuttle Job’s days are passing so swiftly that it seems God is nearly finished with this piece of cloth and is about to cut it from the loom. Then there will be no cord left to weave into his life. Cut off from this earth, he will have no more “hope” (tiqwâ) of enjoying life’s rich experiences.
So this altered sense of time, where it seems like life is endlessly dragging on, but yet all of his days are flying by too quickly that produces Job’s sense of frustration.
Job wants his suffering to end and it seems like it never will, yet he also feels like his days are flying to an end without hope of resolution. This is frustrating.
B. Job’s Uneasy Sense of Time
B. Job’s Uneasy Sense of Time
O remember that my life is wind:
Mine eye shall no more see good.
The eye of him that hath seen me shall see me no more:
Thine eyes are upon me, and I am not.
As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away:
So he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more.
He shall return no more to his house,
Neither shall his place know him any more.
Job, now addressing God Himself, gives in the imperative, a plea to remember. God remember that my life, my time on this earth, is as a wind. Better- a mere breath or a vapor that quickly vanishes away.
Job wants God to be mindful of the brevity that is his life. Also, that Job is close to the limits of what his body can bear. Job is uneasy that his time is running out, and if God does not relent then his eyes will never again see good.
Have you ever attempted a DIY remodeling project at home? Last year dad and I redid the bathroom in the parsonage. At the beginning of the project you think to yourself. This won’t be too bad, we should be done in a week. Two months later after 50 trips to Menards, multiple unforeseen problems, and still no finished bathroom- you tend to be a little frustrated. Why? Because things did happen according to your timetable.
The danger is when we expect God to operate on our timetable. When we fell stuck in life, and when we feel like God is not moving as fast as He should be, we can get frustrated with God. At some point in our lives we are going to have to accept by faith God’s timetable not our own.
Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.
Time is something best left to God, and our frustration can be an indication of our unwillingness to humbly submit to God’s timeline rather than our own.
We get frustrated when we believe things should happen in our own timing.
II. We get frustrated when we see no hope for relief.
II. We get frustrated when we see no hope for relief.
A. Job’s Justification
A. Job’s Justification
Therefore I will not refrain my mouth;
I will speak in the anguish of my spirit;
I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.
The Book of Job (a) The Basic Complaint (7:11–16)
Because of the reproachful way God is treating him, he feels that it is his right to complain loudly. For one plagued by such excruciating pain, silence is not golden.
The Book of Job (a) The Basic Complaint (7:11–16)
He who laments freely has the hope that his words will touch God’s compassion, moving God to deliver him.
B. Job’s Accusation
B. Job’s Accusation
Am I a sea, or a whale,
That thou settest a watch over me?
God’s unrelenting scrutiny is unwarranted given his relative stature.
Wale is better “Sea Monster”
Who am I? I am not the sea, I am not a sea monster, but you have set a guard up around me like I am!
This might be a modern day illustration of how Job was feeling.
Further Job makes the accusation in vss. 13-15 that God will not even leave him alone while he sleeps.
When I say, My bed shall comfort me,
My couch shall ease my complaint;
Then thou scarest me with dreams,
And terrifiest me through visions:
So that my soul chooseth strangling,
And death rather than my life.
God should just leave Job alone- because his life is as short as a vapor
I loathe it; I would not live alway:
Let me alone; for my days are vanity.
Vanity- is better translated as vapor.
God will not leave him alone long enough to even swallow.
And that thou shouldest visit him every morning,
And try him every moment?
How long wilt thou not depart from me,
Nor let me alone till I swallow down my spittle?
God continues to treat Job like a sinner
I have sinned; what shall I do unto thee,
O thou preserver of men?
Why hast thou set me as a mark against thee,
So that I am a burden to myself?
And why dost thou not pardon my transgression,
And take away mine iniquity?
For now shall I sleep in the dust;
And thou shalt seek me in the morning, but I shall not be.
When I was a teen I worked at Camp Chetek for a summer as free labor. One of the tasks we were assigned to accomplish was to scrape all of the paint off of the cabins so they could be repainted. We were given, what seemed like at the time, the smallest scraper in the world, rusty and dull as well, and we were told to start scraping. It seemed like you could scrape the same spot for an hour and not make any progress. And there seemed to be an endless supply of cabins that need scraping. It was hard work, and there didn’t seem to be an end in sight. You can imagine how frustrated I felt. What are we doing today? Scraping cabins, how about tomorrow? Scraping cabins.
Application:
When there is no relief in sight we tend to get frustrated.
Again, the danger is when we get frustrated with God because we believe our situation is too hard, and there is no relief available. God must have messed up, I can’t handle this, why are you doing this to me God? We also begin to accuse God of making mistakes in our life.
Are you struggling with frustration in your life right now? Is God not working according to your timing? Do you feel like your life is overwhelming and that there is no relief in sight? The answer to frustration is found in our hope in God. This is the one thing that God will ultimately teach Job. God is strong enough and wise enough to know what to allow into your life.
We begin to win the war of frustration when we put our faith in God and find hope in Him.
Are you frustrated because of the timing of something in your life? God has to be wise enough to know the best timeline for events. Even specific events in your own life. Trust Him. Hope in God
Are you frustrated because you feel like there is no relief in sight? God has to be wise enough and strong enough to know what you can and cannot handle. He will not tempt us above that we are able.
Put your faith in a God who is wise enough and powerful enough to work things out perfectly in your life. That does not mean that your situation will be immediately resolved in the way that you want it to be. But God will do what is best.
“It is a myth that faith is always smiling. The truth is that faith often feels like the … process of dragging one foot in front of the other because we are conscious of God.” (Welch, Depression, 31).