A recent TV special on one-hit wonders—pop music performers who had one hit and then disappeared—fascinated me. Old footage from their prime showed them to be arrogant, bold, confident, outrageous, and young!

Now, 20 to 30 years later, the TV crew caught up with many of them. Some had moved on with their lives, raising families and enjoying obscurity. But others did not age as gracefully. They looked old and worn-out as they continued to tour, clinging to a long-gone youth and a hollow dream. They equated fame with success, and their fame had proved blindingly fleeting.

In the book of Job, we meet a man who thought his moment in the sun was behind him. His self-righteous friends were certain of that “fact.” They wrongly accused Job of deserving his unspeakable loss and suffering. Amid their charges, Job prayed an earnest, anguished lament: “Oh, that my words could be recorded. Oh, that they could be inscribed on a monument, carved with an iron chisel and filled with lead, engraved forever in the rock” (19:23-24). Then, surprisingly, shockingly, his tone shifted from desperation to hope. Job found hope not in any legacy he could create, but in the permanence of God’s promises.

“As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and He will stand upon the earth at last,” he said. “And after my body has decayed, yet in my body I will see God!” (Job 19:25-26). Job expected to see God literally—not in this life but in the life to come. That’s the genuine, certain hope of every follower of Jesus Christ.

Ironically, Job’s plaintive prayer was answered. His words have been engraved for all of us in the Bible. Job wasn’t looking for fame; he was looking for answers. And he found God to be enough.