Preparation for Life Beyond the Stone

Job 7:16; 10:20; 13:15 & 16

Jesus wants to enable you to avoid the empty life syndrome. He wants to energize you and enable you to live the abundant life. That is, He wants to fill your life with purpose as only He can. 

When the world wants to trash you, He wants to renew you.

Even if you feel as though you are walking down psychopath, in the shade of psychiatry, on your way to psycottage, He can revitalize you.

When life turns bitter and meaning is lost, Jesus ambitiously awaits you to offer guidance to a brighter future. 

Do you have a high view of what it means to live?

In the Old Testament, the oldest book in the Bible, Job, chronicles the mental pilgrimage of a man who evaluated life at three stages. His life became a bundle of big burdens. He became a mere miserable shadow of his one-time greatness and opulence. Let’s look at those stages and see which represents you.

LIFE IS EMPTY (Job 7:16)

To his detractors who came to visit. Job cried out: “I loathe my life … let me alone.” Life became so bitter he became a classic manic depressive.

William James, the great psychologist and philosopher, wrote:

“Nothing we ever do is in the strict scientific literalness wiped out. Down among your nerve cells and fibers, the molecules are counting it, registering and scoring it up to be used against you when the next temptation comes. Could the young but realize how soon they will become walking bundles of habits. We are spinning our own fates, good or evil. We are imitators and copiers of our past selves.” Don’t try to live on sensual standard time and not expect a clock stoppage.

LIFE IS ENDING (10:20)

Often before we realize the value of time most of it has passed us. Years accelerate as they increase. Job said, “My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle…”  He had come to realize time flies.

We lose perspective. To us today is always commonplace. It is yesterday that is beautiful. It is tomorrow when all things seem possible.

Scripture appeals to us to “Redeem the time.” (Ephesians 5:16)

LIFE IS ETERNAL (Job 13:15 & 16)

Job eventually got things in their proper perspective and concluded that life was eternal, therefore, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him…”

The following timely warning sounds morbid, but it is joyous if you know where you will spend eternity beyond the stone.

“Just think! some night the stars will gleam
Upon a cold, grey stone,
And trace a name with silver beam,
And lo! ‘twill be your own.”