Existential crisis is a condition or situation that may be unfamiliar to most people. It refers to a condition or feeling of discomfort that a person experiences in relation to the meaning of life, identity, and purpose. There are many causes of this condition, but one of them is the endless severe suffering that a person is experiencing. Someone who has been critically ill for a long time, for example, will easily feel that his life is meaningless and ask the Creator to pick him up soon. Without a good inner processing, the question of one's existence can lead to a loss of meaning in life and enthusiasm to live it. A person loses their sense of purpose, or awareness of the purpose of their life. Without purpose, there is only darkness and drifting into nothingness.

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Existential questions are also questioned by Job in the text we read today. He fundamentally questions his existence and even the origin of his existence in the world. Suffering and loneliness fueled the question. No one could understand him in his suffering, even God seemed so far away and turned His face away. Verses 8-9 describe Job's feelings that are now caged in darkness. His identity is lost, there is no past and no future. He is in the present without a friend who can fully understand his plight. He further states that the distress he is experiencing does not originate from within him, as it occurs when he opens his eyes. From here Job began to emphasize his view that the distress he experienced did not come from himself but from outside himself. Without any wrongdoing Job still experienced such great distress. Job's statement should bring us to reflect on it. Sometimes suffering occurs not as a consequence of what we do but comes from outside ourselves. For example, when referring to poverty and structural oppression that are increasingly prevalent today. Then the answer to the situation is not personal repentance or remorse, but a fundamental change that is carried out systematically.

Verses 11-15 again describe Job's anxiety. Distress seemed to surround Job. The past with all its glitter is completely gone. The future is unimaginable, only empty enjoyment. The only way out was death. His birth should not have happened. Job felt it was better if he died at birth or perished when he came out of the womb (v.11). At best, even in his childhood, he felt that he did not deserve the usual care of a child of his age (v.12). Job thought that if all that happened then he could be at peace on the day of his death. Such was the severity of Job's suffering that he felt that peace would only be regained when he lay in the grave. Death is like an endless slumber that ends distress and injustice. Job then referred to the rulers whose lives had also ended and were buried in a good place and even covered with gold and silver in their tombs.

The above statement of Job must be understood as a cry of exhaustion from his heart, because in the end Job continued to endure all his suffering. He did not end his suffering quickly through death. Instead, Job's cry emphasized that he was in a struggle to question his existence, thus a spirit to stay alive. It was only because of the severity of his suffering that he felt that only in the grave was there peace. An existential crisis that was born because it was triggered by the tragedy and trauma that he later experienced. One thing we can see is Job's honesty in defining what he felt. It is in his honesty that we actually see Job's struggle to maintain that the suffering did not come from himself but from outside himself. Thus he actually expects justice from God and restoration from Him.

Then face suffering and struggle not only with full surrender to Him, but honesty about what we feel and want. From there comes sincerity and full surrender to the Lord of Life.