Silas
Beloved of All
Your honesty in sharing that you feel worthless is heard, and I want you to know that feeling is not the truth about you before God. One of the oldest books in the Bible deals with that very sense of deep discouragement. Though cultures and times have changed since then, the same struggles of heart that troubled people then still trouble us today, and that book speaks to the deepest issues of life.
That account gives us a view behind what we can see. It shows God speaking of a man as upright, one who loved God and turned away from evil, and it shows an adversary who had been carefully studying that man and forming a theory about him, that he only trusted God because God had put a hedge of blessing around him and made him prosper. The adversary argued that if those blessings were removed, the man would turn away. What followed was profound loss, and the man sat in great pain not understanding why.
That background is a comfort for us when it feels as if God has forgotten us. Even when circumstances make it seem He is distant, He is still at work and He still knows you by name. You are not worthless to Him. He sees you, He values you, and He has not withdrawn His care.
Three friends came to that suffering man intending to comfort him, but they became miserable comforters. They insisted that suffering must mean hidden sin, that God is fair and just so the sufferer must be a hypocrite who needed to get right with God. They falsely accused him and added to his pain. Their counsel was wrong. Suffering does not automatically mean you have done something to make you worthless or to make God turn from you. God Himself later corrected those friends and showed that their explanations were not true.
In his grief that man also said things that were not settled doctrine about life and death, but were simply the cries of a hurting heart. Scripture faithfully records those cries, not to teach us that those despairing conclusions are true, but to show us how honestly God lets people pour out their sorrow. At one point the pain was so heavy that he said he wished God would even take his life, that living had become more miserable than death. If you have felt that low, you are not alone in having such thoughts, and God does not turn away from you for having them. He invites you to bring that pain to Him.
That man also spent much time defending his own innocence and justifying himself, and in the end what he needed was not a better argument but a revelation of God Himself and a mediator who could stand between God and man with a hand on both. That mediator is Jesus Christ. Through Him alone we can come to God, be forgiven, and find our true worth, not in what we own or how useful we feel, but in being known and redeemed by Him.
God cares about the practical burdens you named as well. He knows you need your phone and its screen to be working, He knows the pressure of needing a good job and the worry of bills for your phone and your music account, and He knows the details of your flights home. These are not small things to Him. The Bible teaches that God is fair and just and that we can plead our cause before Him and seek Him and find peace as we receive His word into our hearts.
I am praying for you now.
Father in heaven, I lift this dear one to You through Jesus Christ Your Son. You see the feeling of worthlessness that weighs on this heart, and I ask You to replace that lie with the truth of Your love and value. Let this person know they are seen, known, and not forsaken, even when life feels heavy. I ask You to provide for the phone and the screen, to make a way for it to be sorted in a way that is affordable and lasting. Provide a good job according to Your wisdom, and give ability to pay every bill that is due. Give peace and safety over the flights home, and bring them there in Your care. Reveal Yourself as near, as the One who hears, and draw this heart to rest in Christ who alone brings us to You. Amen.
That account gives us a view behind what we can see. It shows God speaking of a man as upright, one who loved God and turned away from evil, and it shows an adversary who had been carefully studying that man and forming a theory about him, that he only trusted God because God had put a hedge of blessing around him and made him prosper. The adversary argued that if those blessings were removed, the man would turn away. What followed was profound loss, and the man sat in great pain not understanding why.
That background is a comfort for us when it feels as if God has forgotten us. Even when circumstances make it seem He is distant, He is still at work and He still knows you by name. You are not worthless to Him. He sees you, He values you, and He has not withdrawn His care.
Three friends came to that suffering man intending to comfort him, but they became miserable comforters. They insisted that suffering must mean hidden sin, that God is fair and just so the sufferer must be a hypocrite who needed to get right with God. They falsely accused him and added to his pain. Their counsel was wrong. Suffering does not automatically mean you have done something to make you worthless or to make God turn from you. God Himself later corrected those friends and showed that their explanations were not true.
In his grief that man also said things that were not settled doctrine about life and death, but were simply the cries of a hurting heart. Scripture faithfully records those cries, not to teach us that those despairing conclusions are true, but to show us how honestly God lets people pour out their sorrow. At one point the pain was so heavy that he said he wished God would even take his life, that living had become more miserable than death. If you have felt that low, you are not alone in having such thoughts, and God does not turn away from you for having them. He invites you to bring that pain to Him.
That man also spent much time defending his own innocence and justifying himself, and in the end what he needed was not a better argument but a revelation of God Himself and a mediator who could stand between God and man with a hand on both. That mediator is Jesus Christ. Through Him alone we can come to God, be forgiven, and find our true worth, not in what we own or how useful we feel, but in being known and redeemed by Him.
God cares about the practical burdens you named as well. He knows you need your phone and its screen to be working, He knows the pressure of needing a good job and the worry of bills for your phone and your music account, and He knows the details of your flights home. These are not small things to Him. The Bible teaches that God is fair and just and that we can plead our cause before Him and seek Him and find peace as we receive His word into our hearts.
I am praying for you now.
Father in heaven, I lift this dear one to You through Jesus Christ Your Son. You see the feeling of worthlessness that weighs on this heart, and I ask You to replace that lie with the truth of Your love and value. Let this person know they are seen, known, and not forsaken, even when life feels heavy. I ask You to provide for the phone and the screen, to make a way for it to be sorted in a way that is affordable and lasting. Provide a good job according to Your wisdom, and give ability to pay every bill that is due. Give peace and safety over the flights home, and bring them there in Your care. Reveal Yourself as near, as the One who hears, and draw this heart to rest in Christ who alone brings us to You. Amen.
