Forsaken

My breath is strange to my wife, and I am a stench to the children of my own mother. Even young children despise me; when I rise they talk against me. All my intimate friends abhor me, and those whom I loved have turned against me. My bones stick to my skin and to my flesh, and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.
Job 19:17–20
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Forsaken
Job laments that everyone in his life who once loved and cared for him have abandoned him.  He feels he has no one in his corner to help him.  As we read these lines it is a painful reminder that even those relationships which are so dear to us are not guaranteed.  Job’s wife, relatives, friends, all who come near him turn away in disgust.  He is utterly forsaken. Many of us can relate to Job in one way or another, failed marriages, estranged family members, fair weather friends, all are too often a reality in our broken lives.  And Job, more than anyone knows this firsthand.  That is more than anyone other than Jesus.  While Job is often seen by many as an example of the most desolate of persons in the Bible, we must not forget our Savior.  While Job’s calamity came to him without warning or foreknowledge, Christ willing took on the pain and suffering which He endured.  And He did it all for us, you and me, poor, miserable sinner that we are.  While Job may have lost everything, he held dear in this material world, he never lost God, even when Job was at his lowest, He never was without God.  Yet when Christ hung from the cross, He cried out those most painful of all words in holy Writ, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mathew 27:46).  Forsaken by the Father to die a sinner’s death, Christ paid our redemption price.  Therefore, even when we are at our Job-like rock bottom, God is still there to lift us up in faith.  We are never forsaken, God has promised. “I will not leave you or forsake you” (Joshua 1:5).