Repost from 9/14/2010
After studying Job chapters 1-3, I meditated on chapter 3 and Job’s lament. Here we have Job not only cursing the day he was born, but even the day he was conceived. I've never been in such deep depression in my own life, but, after all that he'd been through, I can't say that I blame him for expressing such extremes. I really can't fathom the amount of pain he was in. However, verses 16 and 17 speak of his desire to have died before he even left the womb and how much better he felt it would've been to never have been born in order to avoid such pain.
My mind went to the issue of miscarriages, abortions, and still births...lives coming to an end before they've even had the chance to begin. It seems to me that one of the typical phrases used to consul someone when they've lost a loved one is "They're in a better place." I know that these are typical words even in the case of a life that was ended before it was born. It seems that worldly wisdom would have us believe that the reason for the life to have ended was God's way of allowing the child to avoid something in life. The usual reasons would be, "...painful medical challenges...," and, "...traumatic family life...." But after reading Job's wish to have perished in the womb himself, my gut feeling told me that there are no justifiable reasons to explain the loss of a life, especially a life that never even had a chance to begin. Such a tragedy is exactly just that...a tragedy; the type of occurrences that have no explanation to them because we don't have the mind of God. If we're right in explaining away a life because they would avoid suffering, then what does that say about those who survive in spite of the suffering they have in store for them? I guess my question is this, do we not value life the way we should? Shouldn't we value just being alive far beyond the suffering that's experienced? I really think that there's more to this "being alive thing" that we just don't fully grasp. After all, I can't think of a single person who could tell me what it's like to never have been given a chance. Can you?
Why is it that even in the greatest physical suffering when the mind is telling the body to give up and wishing that its life was over, the body is still going through all the survival mechanisms programmed into it (by God Himself) to keep the body alive? It's not as easy as the mind telling the body to die. The body just keeps on fighting to live.
Could it be that all the miscarried, aborted and stillborn babies who are with Jesus right now are, dare I say, envious that they never made it past the womb alive and experienced the breath of life that God desires for all of us to have? Is there something about having that breath, even just once, that we just don't get? It's a gift, isn't it? I don't think we understand how great of a gift it truly is...so great that it's worth all the suffering that comes along with it.
Now technically, I do believe that life begins at conception, not birth. (That makes it all the more significant that Job not only cursed the day he was born, but the day he was conceived. He must have been a believer in life beginning at conception as well.) Although the lungs aren't fully expanded and filled with air until birth, I believe that God's breath of life fills us the moment we're conceived...that moment that two cells come together and a living being is created...that moment that cannot be explained by science as to why and how it happens but just that it happens is the moment that God steps in and does what science cannot do. After all, the first breath of life was breathed into man by God Himself.
So maybe I’m wrong in thinking that they (the unborn babies) had no chance to live since they lived right from conception. You can’t die if you didn’t live, and a life ended before birth is still a life ended. The point is that life is so precious. There's just no "reason" for it ever to be ended except that we live in a fallen world, for living in a fallen world is the only answer to why…why do such tragedies occur? And if it is such a tragedy, why wish for it? You can’t remedy one tragic situation by wishing for another.
O.K., I will concede that in one sense, death is a blessing. The moment that sin entered the world, death came along with it and most of the time death is viewed as a curse, but there is mercy in it. For if God was not merciful enough to allow for death, we would all be living forever in a cursed world. But God is just. He has our days numbered and decides when He’ll allow for death to come. Since, as I said before, we don’t have the mind of God, we can never do justice to the reasons why death comes at the times that it does. We can be sorry for it, we can thank God for His wisdom in it, but we just should never wish for it. Let's not forget that although God did not necessarily step in and prevent Job's suffering, He was not willing for Job to lose his life.
Genesis 2:7
The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground
and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,
and the man became a living being.
Amie Spruiell 9/14/2010
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