Job 9:28-29 "I become afraid of all my suffering, for I know thou wilt not hold me innocent. I shall be condemned; why then do I labor in vain?"

It does feel like this sometimes, doesn't it? We are all sinners, and in our hearts we know it. We know we cannot be held innocent, we know we deserve condemnation. When we are in the depths of suffering, we can ask ourselves "Why bother? Why keep trying to be good when I have been bad and will be bad again?" This is the temptation of despair. It is the devil whispering these things in our into our minds and hearts. If we know God at all, we know He loves us and wants nothing more than for us to be with Him. Our sufferings are always for a greater good, they are never the end game, unless we give into the despair.

The devil is the father of lies, but the way he lies is so insidious. His lies always have an element of truth, in fact often they are truth, just not the whole truth. Everything Job is thinking is to some extent true - he is a sinner, he does not, on his own, deserve to be held innocent. But his thoughts leave out the most important truth, that God loves him. The devil always leaves this truth out when he is whispering to us, but God will always remind us of it if we turn to Him in our sufferings.