When I say, ‘My bed will comfort me, my couch will ease my complaint,’ then you scare me with dreams and terrify me with visions, so that I would choose strangling and death rather than my bones. (Job 7:13-15)
Job is so tormented he can't even relieve his daytime suffering through sleep or rest. He tosses so badly with the specter of visions and dark thoughts that he would rather choose death.
Not to compare my sufferings with Job's but I was in a period almost 20 years ago where I was daily tormented and in the night, I could not sleep. I'd close my eyes and toss and turn and my mind would not turn off and I relived all the agonies of the day all over again. If the sleep was there, it was shallow.
I was working 16-18 hours in the day and I'd soooo yearn for sleep and a refreshing rest, that I'd eagerly look forward to a good sleep. But I never got it.
Perplexed as to my nightly torments, even on vacation,
I took a photo in wonderment of my visible struggle.
After a while with struggle so deep and relief nowhere to be found, even in sweet rest that constantly eludes, I can well understand Job's feeling.
Thankfully, our seasons of struggle do not last forever, if we are in Christ. Job did not know that God had already pronounced him blameless. (Job 1:8). The Preacher Solomon reminds us that there is a season for everything (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8) but he also said that,
no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. (Ecclesiastes 3:11b).
As far as we know, Job never knew about God's conversation with satan. He never knew about the activity regarding him that occurred in the heavenlies and perpetrated by demons against him on earth. The point of the book of Job was to vindicate God's integrity and His wisdom, not Job's. Job's task was to persevere in trusting God through it all.
And so it was.