As I read through the Bible each year, the plan I follow ends with the book of Job. At first glance, it’s not exactly reading that conforms to the spirit of yuletide. Yet, I found one chapter in particular to be highly relevant to the Christmas season. In chapter 19 in his answer to his friend, Bildad, Job expresses his loss of hope. He says, “God has put me in the wrong and closed his net about me… My hope he [God] has pulled up like a tree.”

While we admire Job for his great faith and for holding fast to his integrity, he was not a perfect man. He erred in some of the things he said about God. But it’s understandable given the depth of his anguish and the devastating loss he suffered. Job seems to hold God accountable for all that happened to him saying, “He has kindled his wrath against me and counts me as his adversary.” (19:11) It’s easy to doubt God in the midst of great pain and suffering.

Why does Job say at one point, God has pulled up my hope like a tree, and then confess his undying faith in God?

What impresses me about Job is that even in a hopeless situation he trusted God. His words, “Though he slays me, yet will I trust in him” express a measure of faith worth emulating by us all. But why does Job say at one point, God has pulled up my hope like a tree, and then confess his undying faith in God?

Only by hanging on in faith will we be able to regain the hope that brings joy and peace out of the ashes of our suffering.

1. Faith is rooted in God’s Character

Christian hope understands that God is good; that whatever he allows is for our benefit and for his glory. To despair is to live as though God is to blame for what is happening to you. You are convinced that there is no way the calamity that has brought you such pain could be ever be a good thing. This kind of reasoning eventually concludes that God cannot be a God of love, and that he’s ultimately to blame for all the pain and suffering in this world.

So, I think Job’s saying God killed his hope is more a description of how he felt rather than an expression of belief. All of us have been there; the place where we feel abandoned, when we know we’re not; we feel God doesn’t care when we know he does; and where we lose our hope but not our faith. Why is that? It’s because faith is never about feelings. Only by hanging on in faith, to what we know is true about God, will we be able to regain the hope that brings joy and peace out of the ashes of our suffering.

2. Faith bows to the Sovereignty of God

At the end of the book when God finally shows up, Job repents and bows in humility and faith. He admits he uttered things he did not understand. What’s also interesting is that even then the Lord did not offer any answers to Job’s sixteen “whys.” Job teaches us that the Creator is never duty-bound to the creature. God is not obligated to explain his ways to us as if he needed our approval. When we’re cast into the crucible of testing God simply demands we trust him. He doesn’t chide when our feelings get the best of us and we cry out in despair as long as it’s directed upwards towards him.

If Christmas is about anything, it’s about hope. It’s about light shining into the darkness of man’s despair to bring hope to the world. Christ the Lord came to be with us in our pain, to share our infirmities, and ultimately to bear our iniquities. Because we know he loves us and that he is our all-wise sovereign King, even in the midst of life’s greatest trials, we can hope.