“Oh, that my vexation were weighed. And all my calamity laid in the balances. For then it would be heavier than the sand of the sea.”
-Job 6:2–3
Just want us to get a picture here of what Job is feeling. This weight is so heavy. He says it would be heavier than the sand of the sea. Just picture that, all the sand in the sea, he feels like he’s under it all. He was so overwhelmed that my vexation was weighed, my calamity lay in the balances. Do you ever feel like that? Do you ever feel heavy, weighted down by sorrow to the point where you just almost can’t even imagine a way out from underneath it?
That’s how Job feels and I’m guessing that some of you are feeling that right now. To maybe varying degrees, but do you find yourself in a circumstance where you think, how do I get out from under this? It just feels so heavy and it’s day after day after day.
Job 6:2–3 Calls Us to Pray to the Lord
I think this plays out in our lives in all kinds of different ways. And this is where we’re reminded of such good commands to us. Like first Peter chapter five, cast all your cares, your anxieties, your burdens, your weights upon him for he cares for you. Can we just pray amidst the weights that we carry in this world?
Isn’t it good to know that not one of us has to carry them alone? That you and I have been commanded by God, he has told us, cast them on me. I’ll take them. I’ll bear this with you for you.
Job 6:2–3 Leads us to Praise God
Oh God, we praise you for being our rock and our refuge and our strength and our ever-present help in trouble. We praise you for telling us to cast all of our burdens and our weights upon you because you care for us. Oh God, that you care for us, help us to remember that amidst all the things that we feel weighing us down, we don’t feel like we’ll ever get out from under. God, we just say, please take them our anxieties, our cares, our burdens. We cast them on you and we trust in your care for us.
Please help us to hold this up. We can’t do it, God. None of us can. We pray for your help in holding up the weight of sorrow and the weight of confusion. Just the weight of even waiting for something to change, to get out from under this, God, we pray for your strength to hold up during these days. Hold us up in your righteous right hand with these weights, the weight of the sand, of the sea that we feel above us sometimes.
God Never Leaves Us Alone
God, we praise you for never leaving us alone in our suffering. And even as we pray all this, God, we pray for people who are walking through the weights to this world. And don’t know you. They don’t have you to cast their cares on. They don’t know your love for them. God, we pray, help us to point people to you in this suffering world, help us to point people all around this. There are people we’ll be around today, who are walking through difficult times.
God helps us to be an encouragement to them, helps us to help bear the burden with them and point them to you as the ultimate burden bearer. We pray that you help us to be light. God, we pray and help us to be a reflection of your burden-bearing love to people around us in the world. We pray all this in light of Job 6:2–3 in Jesus’ name. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
