Job was an Emo. He had good reason to be! His oxen and donkeys were nicked and all but one of the servants looking after them were slashed (Job 1:14). A crazy fire ball engulfed all his sheep and all but one of the shepherds (Job 1:16). Three sets of Chaldean Guerrillas nabbed his camels and killed all but one of the camel handlers (Job 1:17). Next, his sons and daughters were crushed to death as their building collapsed while they were partying (Job 1:18).
Job went from having plenty to having nothing, from riches to rags. Soon he was afflicted with sores from head to toe (Job 2:7) and he sat amongst ashes self-harming himself with broken pottery (Job 2:8). Although Job didn’t know why he was suffering, he was to still recognise that in the good times and the bad times, that “the name of the LORD is to be praised” (Job 1:21).
You may not suffer like Job suffered, but you don’t have to be alive for long to know that we live in a world where EVERYONE is intimately effected by suffering. It’s pretty easy to be “Emo” about the world and the situations in which we find ourselves. How do you cheer up an Emo kid?
