Confidence or Despair?

My daily reading recently took me to Job 19 - Job is really down in this chapter. His "friends" have been taking him to task after he lost his wealth and his children. Look at some of his words:

2 How long will you torment me and crush me with words?

8 He has blocked my way so I cannot pass; he has shrouded my paths in darkness.

13 He has alienated my brothers from me; my acquaintances are completely estranged from me.

17 My breath is offensive to my wife; I am loathsome to my own brothers.

21 Have pity on me, my friends, have pity, for the hand of God has struck me.

22 Why do you pursue me as God does? Will you never get enough of my flesh?

This sounds like a pity party! and I was really feeling Job’s pain and despair! Thankfully, I haven't lost my children, but life has thrown a lot of hits, sometimes piling them on in bunches - I could really identify with him!

But then suddenly, out of the blue, the mood changes:

23 Oh, that my words were recorded, that they were written on a scroll,

24 that they were inscribed with an iron tool on lead, or engraved in rock forever!

25 I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth.

26 And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God;

27 I myself will see him with my own eyes—I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!

Wow!

It's so very easy trust God in all things when life is good, when God's blessings are flowing. It's great when relationships are going well, health is good, there's a nice salary coming in, a bank account with positive numbers, and perhaps a sweet vacation trip or two on the horizon.

But, is my trust in God, or in the things He has so generously provided? How do I react when all that is gone, or threatened, as we hear every evening on the news?

For Job, life's challenges revealed where his trust lay. In the depths of his sorrow and pain, after all his losses, Job proclaims "I know my Redeemer lives!".

In his book, "Just Courage", Gary Haugen quotes John Stuart Mill's essay "On Liberty" written in 1859:

Christians seem to have the amazing ability to say the most wonderful things without actually believing them.

The sayings of Christ co-exist passively in their minds, producing hardly any effect beyond what is caused by mere listening to words so amiable and bland.

Perhaps my life need not be so manifestly shriveled and mediocre if I began to act as if what Jesus said were actually true.

Gary then writes:

You and I are rightly yearning to walk in the way of Jesus, to experience the intimate presence of almighty God, to live daily in a completely different way because we know Jesus.

I wonder - do we need moments of despair to reach the point of trusting in God, because that’s all we have left?

Or, can we live differently every day because we know the intimate presence of God, as Job did, so that when everything else is gone, his confidence in God remains strong?