Devotional 5: Job 25-40

Job 38

One of the great mysteries of the Book of Job is that it never answers the question of suffering. While we the readers know why Job is suffering, he never learns. We hear the reasons the friends give and we can see a small amount of truth within their statements. But we realize that their does not seem to be just one reason why people suffer. And to further confuse the matter, when God does finally speak, He never answers a single question but only asks questions of Job and the friends. That also means that He is asking us questions.

We hope to understand why suffering happens so we can learn to avoid it and teach others to avoid it much like other dangers in our life. Many people in the nation of Israel did not like this so they reduced suffering down to sin (which is what the friends argued). Again, there is some truth to that as we all can attested but so much of the suffering that happens in this world seems to be completely random and without reason. It is this very randomness that scares us because we cannot prepare for it.

But of course that is not entirely truth. We can prepare for suffering by trusting in God. So much of our lives boil down to that one word TRUST. We saw it at the start when Adam and Eve did not trust God (and let sin into the world). We will see it a constant theme throughout the whole Bible. This also means that we will have the same opportunities others had to trust God when things go wrong in life, when we suffer or those around us suffer and we do not know why. We will have the same choice set before us that Job did – either curse God or bless God when things go wrong. My prayer for each and every one of you is that, when the shock wears off; when the numbness goes away and the anger comes coursing through us like a raging river – that we all will let go of our anger and trust God with every fiber of our being. Trust not in ourselves or our strengths or our possessions but ONLY in God.