Longing for the Night

Will your cry for help avail to keep you from distress, or all the force of your strength? Do not long for the night, when peoples vanish in their place.
Job 36:19–20
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Longing for the Night
There is a tendency in human nature to want to avoid the negative things in life.  Pain and suffering are to be avoided at all costs.  Our culture has embraced this idea to a deadly fault. The term euthanasia derives from the Greek meaning “good death.” We speak of death as a good thing as something to seek after especially when we are suffering.  This is why we have laws in some parts of our nation which allow for people to take their own lives and have medical assistance in accomplishing this grim task.  Elihu warns Job not to long for the night, that is not to hope for death. We too would do well to heed this advice. Suffering and pain are not fun, but we can use them to draw closer to our Savior.  We do not fear death, but nor do we seek it out.  Our lives are precious in the sight of God, and in fact, are not even ours. God has given us the gift of life and only He can take it.  Our lives mean so much to our Father that He sent His only Son to die for us so that our lives might be bought back from sin, death, and the devil.  Death will come to us all in God’s own time, but in the meantime when suffering and pain come, we turn to the cross, we remember our Baptism, and hold fast to God’s Word.  We do not long for the night because we have been given the gift of living in the Light.