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WHEN A MOM’S HEART BREAKS. JOB 2:4-10. MOM’S DAY. 5/14/2023.
4 So Satan answered the Lord and said, “Skin for skin! Yes, all that a man has he will give for his life. 5 But stretch out Your hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will surely curse You to Your face!” 6 And the Lord said to Satan, “Behold, he is in your hand, but spare his life.” 7 So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord, and struck Job with painful boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. 8 And he took for himself a potsherd with which to scrape himself while he sat in the midst of the ashes.
9 Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die!” 10 But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips.
1. Job had a wife
a. We often concentrate on Job’s unprovoked suffering and the strength of his faith
b. In a way, Job’s wife suffered even more deeply
a1. She not only had lost her 10 children and financial security, but she watches her husband suffer with painful boils
a2. She does not have anywhere near the level of faith that her husband had
a3. Her husband could not comfort her and she had no strength to comfort him
a4. To her, Job’s declaration of faith must have seemed like empty platitudes
a5. There is no indication of friends helping her through her grief
c. Women feel things more deeply than men
a1. The emotional makeup of a wife and mother are often more personal
a2. Men can more easily internalize their grief, working silently through pain
a3. Women often verbalize their anguish
2. The pain of a woman’s loss
a. A mother who has lost her children is angry at the circumstances and often angry at God
a1. A feeling of undeserved punishment
a2. As bonds are broken, the soul is bitter
b. Often is such situations, a wife will express her anger in ways she doesn’t really mean
a1. “Curse God and die” = curse (to sarcastically bless; an insincere invoking of God) – bless God in the same way He blessed you
a2. Job 19:17 in her frustration she disdain’s her situation and takes it out on Job (“even your breath stinks”)
c. Often in frustration we take out our anguish on those nearest to us (ex., a wife mad at her husband because he died and left her alone)
3. A mother’s cross
a. Moms bear many burdens of care, loss, lack of appreciation, toil, setbacks, insecurity…
a1. They deeply feel the pain of their husband losing a job or health
a2. The loss of a child or rejection by a child never leaves them (personal)
b. It is difficult to be hard on Job’s wife
a1. Job’s response to her was spiritually correct, but emotionally insensitive
a2. Job was in no position to give care
c. Job’s wife needed someone to feel her pain
a1. She couldn’t identify with Job’s faith
a2. She needed time to grieve and comfort
d. God expects wives to have great faith and show great fortitude and patience (I Peter 3:1-6)
a1. High spirituality is hard and a struggle
a2. Compassion and grace for wives needed
Key Verse: 1 Peter 3:1-6
1 Wives, likewise, be submissive to your own husbands, that even if some do not obey the word, they, without a word, may be won by the conduct of their wives, 2 when they observe your chaste conduct accompanied by fear. 3 Do not let your adornment be merely outward—arranging the hair, wearing gold, or putting on fine apparel— 4 rather let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God. 5 For in this manner, in former times, the holy women who trusted in God also adorned themselves, being submissive to their own husbands, 6 as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, whose daughters you are if you do good and are not afraid with any terror.