Useless Days and Restless Nights

Job 7:1

God gives everyone time to complete His purpose for his or her lives. We need time. Time is important. We need time to accomplish goals. We need time to show people how much we love them. We need time to carry out every day chores. The problem is we don’t make the best of time and time spent cannot be recovered. Stephen Covey and Roger and Rebecca Merrill begin their book on time management, First Things First, with a chapter titled, “How Many People on Their Deathbed Wish They’d Spent More Time at the Office?” There are no rewind buttons in life to take us back to a particular time in history.

We waste a lot of valuable time. As a consequence we become useless as it pertains to the plan that God has for our lives. Days become useless and nights become restless. You can’t sleep at night and you wonder why? Maybe God is trying to tell you something. God gives us time to do His will but it is a set time with an expiration date attached with expectations for our lives.

 The story of Job is one of the first clear biblical case studies of a man who was tested by God and came through reevaluating how important his time was on earth. Job was a good man that God allowed Satan to afflict for the purpose of establishing Job’s faithfulness. Job was tested with his family, fortune, flesh, fidelity and friendships. Yet, he never sinned against God. In Chapter three Job asked God the one question, “What’s the point of life?” He requested the Lord to erase his life and rip the date of his conception from the calendar of time. He asked God, “Why didn’t you let me die at birth?” Job’s friends made matters worse. Instead of encouraging Job through his misery they began to blame Job for his misfortune in chapters four and five. In chapter six Job desired to die but he wanted God to answer another question; “Where is the strength to have hope in a situation like this?” From chapters three to seven Job does three signal things:

1. Job questions his existence: Why was I born?
2. Job expresses his resistance: What have I to live for?
3. Job entreats divine assistance: What have I to hope in?

This is the context for chapter 7. Job answered his own questions about the certainty of life in chapter 7:1. Job attempted to excuse what he could not justify, which is his desire to die. Job recognizes simple elementary truths in the two questions asked; “¹ Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth? Are not his days also like the days of an hireling?

1. Life is an Appointment: We are born for an appointed time to live and then to die. An appointment has been made; a set time, an established time has been fixed for each person to be here on planet earth. He who sent us placed an appointment on the eternal calendar. Just as we were appointed to be born we are also appointed to die. Hebrews 9:27 – “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.” One thing we know about the judgment is that it cannot be avoided. The second thing we know is the “ books” will be opened and those at the “Great White Throne” will be cast into hell (Revelations 20:11-15). Thirdly, it will be the end of time and the beginning of eternity. There will be no mistakes in judgment because we will be judged by a perfect God that cannot be deceived (Galatians 6:7). Fourthly, “As God the Son, Jesus Christ will be the judge (John 5:22). All unbelievers will be judged by Christ at the “great white throne,” and they will be punished according to the works they have done. The Bible is very clear that unbelievers are storing up wrath against themselves (Romans 2:5) and that God will “give to each person according to what he has done” (Romans 2:6). (Believers will also be judged, at a different judgment called the “judgment seat of Christ” (Romans 14:10), but since Christ’s righteousness has been imputed to us and our names are written in the Book of Life, we will be rewarded, not punished, according to our deeds.) At the final judgment the fate of the unsaved will be in the hands of the omniscient God who will judge everyone according to his soul’s condition.”[1] Our judgment will be based on what we did with Jesus. Either we have accepted Him or rejected Him and based upon that there will be a separation of the sheep and goat (Matthew 25:31-46).
2. Life is about Completing an Assignment: We are to work for God. God has expectations from our life. When you work for someone the goal is to do what they hire you for not what you desire to do. We waste most of our time doing what we want to do instead of asking the Lord, “Why did you send me here?”
3. Life is about Hope in God: Job understood the need to have hope in God’s Plan for his life.

The bad thing about time is that it does not respect you. It does not stop when you tell it to stop. It does not listen to your complaints or pause because you’re having a bad day. The good thing about time is that it makes us all equal. There are the same 24 hours in a day whether you are a billionaire or a beggar. What matters is how one manages the time they have.

What do we do with time?

1. Make the best of the time you have left… Don’t spend your days waiting on somebody to make something happen for you but make it happen yourself. “Lord each us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” Psalm 90:12.

Recognize the value of the time you have as precious. Make good use of every day by living a life that reflects purpose and never lose the vision of eternity. Never lose hope in God. God is speaking today. Can’t sleep at night? You wonder why? Maybe God is trying to tell you something.

Time is winding up!

Dr. Oscar T. Moses

[1] Gotquestions.org. “What happens at the final judgment?”