Out Of The Trap

“And the LORD turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends: also the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before.” (Job 42:10 AV)

 

Job is a study of the emotional health of someone who has gone through great tragedy.  For too long, fundamentalists have turned their back on depression.  The word of God is not silent concerning this issue.  There are many reasons for depression.  Simply put, depression is a feeling of futility wrapped in ignorance or rebellion.  In Job’s case, his discourse with his three friends was his way of processing his emotional response to what had happened.  He lost his children, his wealth, and his health.  This happened very rapidly.  When it comes to depression, it is a mistake to divorce emotional health separately and apart from mental and physical health.  We are not a simple compilation of our parts.  We are complex.  This is where modern psychology has it wrong.  They misunderstand the spiritual by wrapping the mental and emotional together as if they are the same thing.  They are not.  All this is pertinent because the careful bible student will notice God turned the captivity of Job before He restored his health, wealth, and family.  Job’s captivity was not his circumstances.  His captivity was his response to his circumstances.  In particular, his captivity was his response defined in the context of a sovereign God.

What happened?  How did God turn the mental and emotional captivity of Job?  It wasn’t in the change of his circumstances.  This would come later.  What changed Job’s captivity was a discussion God had with Job.  Job willingly accepted his circumstances as from God, but chaffed at the missing motive for it all.  He could not make sense of why God would allow such adversity.  He and his three friends scoured Job’s life seeking some horrendous sin which would give cause for the loss he now suffered.  Some suggested it wasn’t a sin already committed, but rather, one yet to be done.  The suggestion was God’s hand of correction had fallen on Job because Job was planning a horrendous indiscretion that would be equal to what he was now enduring.  After many chapters of bantering back and forth, no answer was found.  How could it be?  The One who had the answer was never consulted.

When God spoke, he shocked Job out of his depression.  There were no words of consolation.  There were no soft words fitly spoken to drive away wrath.  The words that God spoke were blunt and a bit rough.  In a nutshell, God asked Job why Job felt he deserved an answer.  The point was that God, as the sovereign God, causes and allows all things for His purpose and glory and He is not obligated to explain Himself.  God can and does do what God can and will do.  We are nothing.  We are instruments in His had to turn as He will.  We have no standing to object or demand of God anything.  Much less an answer.  The captivity spoken of here is one which Job put himself into.  He needed to process what he felt and thought so he could accept his situation as one that made sense to him.  God doesn’t have to provide us with this answer.  In fact, as far as I can tell, until the book of Job was written, he may not have known it was Satan who did all that.  We are trapped in depression because we demand of God something to which we are not entitled.  Accepting the circumstances of life and God’s sovereign plan without any explanation from Him is the door that leads out of our dark world.  The reason ‘why’ should not be our objective.  Rather, how we should order our lives in the context of our circumstances.  Once God turned the emotional and mental captivity of Job, Job offered sacrifice for his friends and family.  So, if we are tormented, a change of circumstances is not going to change who and what we are.  Any time difficulty comes, right back into depression we go.  The answer is simple. Surrender to the hand of God without a need for Him to justify Himself and we will soon be on the road to emotional and mental health.