This morning I read in Job3:23 “Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden, and whom God has hedged in?” I believe that we all feel like this from time to time. You feel that nobody notices what you are doing, and nobody even thank you for the hard work you put in to keep things going. It is as if what you do is hidden from others to notice.

You would like to be noticed and recognized and go forward in life, but it is as if there is a hedge around you that keeps you from achieving anything. I believe this is what Job experienced. All the years he did his utmost to live a righteous life before the Lord and now he ended up with nothing, sitting in the midst of the ashes, scratching himself with a potsherd. Job repeats this lamentation in chapter 19:8 where he says “He has fenced up my way, so that I cannot pass.”

If I look at Job’s wealth before his suffering, I can only imagine that he must have been a very busy man. To have flocks of such multitude means you are running a very big business. When everything, including his health, was taken from him, he started to reflect on his life and his relationship with the Lord. That is what we read about in the book of Job.

Towards the end of the book of Job we read that this terrible suffering ended and the Lord once again blessed him. But I believe Job’s view of life, of wealth and his relationship with God was different to what it was before. No one can go through such suffering and agony and not be changed. In Job 42:2 Job says “I know that You can do everything, and no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You.”

Sometimes we go through times when all seems out of hand and we feel as if the Lord as well as our friends have abandoned us, but perhaps it is the Lord fencing us in for a while that we can once again realize that He is our source for everything that we need. In stead of complaining, it may be wise to rather get quiet and spend time with Him. To make sure that we hear His voice and perhaps re-align our lives according to His purpose. “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?” (Mark 8:36) The Lord is more interested in our souls than in our bank balances.

Jeremiah seems to have understood something of this. In Jer 17:5-8 we read: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart departs from the Lord. For he shall be like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see when good comes, but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land which is not inhabited. Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is the Lord. For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, which spreads out its roots by the river, and will not fear when heat comes; but its leaf will be green, and will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will cease from yielding fruit.”

Hedged in? Let us turn to the Lord. Perhaps God wants us to get to the point of confessing with Job; “… You can do everything, and no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You.” Our Lord is the one who can “…make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” (Isa 43:19)