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I
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was a young buck when
I heard a man say to my father that he wished he had never been born. It was a
startling statement. The imprint of that moment on my mind is still with me
decades later. There is deep seriousness in such a thought. To be so miserable
that one wishes to die; or stranger still that one could wish that they had
never seen the light of day... it is an incomprehensible agony that drives a
sane person to this kind of an outlook on life.
Job was there. And, who can blame him. He had lost
absolutely everything that mattered to him. Essentially, he had no possessions
remaining... he had no servants, no children, no health, no real support and
maybe worst of all, no answers. He was miserable!
Not that what Job said made much of a difference. He
could've wished forever that he had been a victim of miscarriage, but the fact
remained... he was born (Job 3:11). He was born and he had lived a full life
for many years. Wishing concerning what was past was a fruitless exercise. He
longed for a figment of hypothetical reality that he imagined would have been
better than the life he was enduring. Therein lay the significance of Job's
words. He was so wretchedly weary that anything seemed attractive compared to
what he was going through. Starving as an infant seemed like a kindness beside
what he was bearing (Job 3:12).
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