Job

The Book of Job is the all time classic book on pain and suffering...The Book of Job is a Holy Book, being that it is in the Bible...Maybe this book is about how God wants us to trust Him as His Eternal Plan plays out, regardless of our sufferings and tragedies...And in His Plan, and as our lives are lived out on earth suffering happens in life -to each of us at some point in our lives...Some suffering comes sooner for some and some suffering come late in life for others...And the degree of suffering is different for all of us...And if God is Perfect, as Jesus says He is in His Sermon on the Mount, then we must believe that the One with Perfect and Complete Knowledge knows what He is doing and His Plan is eternally sufficient and good...And Jesus tells us in His LORD's Prayer that God's Will will be done on earth as it gets done in heaven...

God allowed the evil one to be with the angels in the Book of Job, we have to wonder why... Scripture tells us that one day the angels came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came with them...The LORD said to Satan, "Where have you come from?"...We can certainly believe that God knew where the evil one was at all times...

The Book of Job is about a man, who is a good man, is called upon to suffer...God allows the evil one to bombard the life of Job with great loss, grief, troubles, and great suffering in the loss of health...The suffering becomes very personal after awhile...The question that comes up is how can God who is so good, perfect, and is LOVE, allow innocent people to suffer, while others enjoy prosperity and do not seem to suffer...But we know that pain and suffering are universal...The Book of Job, without question, shows us that pain and suffering happens to good people...We know Job tries to be good, as we read the first several verses...We are told he is blameless, upright, and feared God...Job was the greatest man among all the people of the East...Job even during feasting season followed the proper sacrifices and acted priest-like in taking care of his family...Job was prosperous and wealthy...And God allows satan to enter Job's life...We are shown that God allows suffering and that health and wealth are fleeting...We might learn that health and wealth are not given to every follower of God...And that good wealth and good health can be gone in a second...We might also learn that suffering is a part of life after reading the Book of Job...

The question is why does God allow the evil one in Job's life?...The evil one thinks that Job will deny God once his wealth and the many good things around him are gone from his life...But the evil one is wrong...During Job's personal tragedies and personal sufferings, he clings to the hope in the LORD...

And besides being a book about suffering, the Book of Job is about man trying to learn more about God...And Job learns about God through his many, many tragedies and sufferings...He questions God in the dialogue in the Book of Job...And Job has many questions as he suffers in sickness...

For me, the first part of the Book of Job is a story about how God sometimes seems absent, especially when we need Him...Job needed God in His trials...And yet we also know that God was near Job...God was watching all that had happened with Job...And He allowed it to happen to Job...We would like God to alleviate many and much of our sufferings in our times of need, and when we suffer...And even though God seemed distance to Job in the early parts of the book, we know He is near to him...Job had lost his family, and his servants, and his wealth...Job would have needed God very much, then in his life...Job then lost his health, and he looks around for God for some help, but he cannot find Him...Regardless of not feeling or hearing or seeing God, Job continues to look and talk to God and questions God...But Job hears only silence for quite some time, until the Great Storm comes...God is there...Job endures throughout his illness and pain and suffering, clinging to the hope that God is there...Job perseveres, survives, and endures...Job has spoken and out of his pain, and loss, he has spoken in darkness with a bitterness about the injustice he has been given...In this darkness of pain and loss there is Job's lack of knowledge about the universe and God...And out of a Great Storm, Job feels the Presence of God...And out of the storm, Job learns of God's Eternal Wisdom...Job learned as he tired and became weary in his illness, God is there...Job learned that the LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the complex earth...God does not grow tired or weary, and His understanding no one can fathom...God gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak...God strengthened Job after He asks His questions...

I do not understand why God allowed the evil one in Job's life or some of the things that even go on in my own life to happen...But, because I don't understand these things is certainly not a reason, not to believe in God...In fact, it is further evidence, for me, that God does exist...I don't understand many things in the universe and in life...I do not understand how we hear things, and that information gets in our brain, and we process that information and then are able to speak...God has created our brains, and He understands those processes in our brains and in our thoughts...But I have no idea, how He did it, and how we listen, hear things, process those things we hear, and then can speak and communicate back to others...But because I don't understand the processes of the brain, doesn't make the brain any more or less efficient...The brain still works and I am able to communicate...God knows how it works...God completely understands us, because He created us...But I do not understand many, if not all, of the spiritual things that goes on with God...I know His Son, Jesus, did His miracles, but I do not know how He did them...Jesus tells us His Kingdom is not even of this world...I cannot know how these great things are done, because I am a sinner...I am not God...If I understood all these things, and let us just say for one day, knew everything God knew, then I might think I am God, but I am just a grasshopper compared to God as Isaiah tells me (Isaiah 40;22)...And our God is the One and Only God...He is Unique and Complete...He is Complete in Everything...Complete in all things...His Son is also unique and remarkable...I do not need to understand, all things, but I would like to...God is Almighty and He Alone is our LORD and God (Isaiah 37:20)...God is I AM WHO I AM (Exodus 3:14)...I AM the first and I AM the last, and there is no God besides Him (Isaiah 44:6)...If I somehow understood all the things that God does, this would, at least for me, might be evidence against His existence...How could a man, ever understand everything?...God never does not explain Himself to Job...If Job could understand all the things of the universe, might then Job be as wise as God?...If God had to explain Himself for the things He allowed to to Job, to me, or anyone -would He be God?...I simply, with my limited wisdom, cannot understand or comprehend infinity and eternal wisdom or the eternities...I cannot understand One Being Perfect...God is Eternal an is Eternally Wise...In God's questions to Job we see His vast complexity in the universe He created...

God is control of everything...When we read the complete Book of Job, we read about His goodness and justice...We also seem to feel that Job needs God more in his bad times than his good days (in the first few verses of Job)...But Job had tried to be good all the time...Do we look more for God when we have pain and sufferings?...In the end, what God offers us is His Presence (as He did for Job), is His Comfort, and His Love...And after all Job's pain with all his sufferings and losses, Job is renewed...Job is happy again...It seems God has given Job back his health...Job seems to have made a paradigm shift on how he sees pain and suffering after God is Present with him...

Sometimes there are things in life that cannot be answered with words...And in these things, God is the answer...This certainly makes God mysterious...Since the way we understand most things in life is communicating through speech and words...God provides more than comfort and good health...God is over comfort and good health...Mysterious, or a Mysterious God is not always the answer we want, but maybe it is the answer we really need -even though we cannot understand God...And at the end of the Book of Job, the LORD blesses the latter part of Job's life...God cares for Job and his friends...Goodness prevails over evil...

Job learned that those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength...They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint (Isaiah 40:31)...

There are some, if not many, things we will never understand...But God is there with His control, and His stability...Job felt this in the LORD, when the Presence of the LORD appeared to Him out of the storm...

These lessons come to mind as I read the Book of Job...Job endured through his sufferings...Job persisted in life...And Job clung to his faith and continued to believe in God...

It seems that Job could have given up on God at any time after he lost his family, his wealth, and then his health...Job, in the end, was comforted by God's unanswered questions...God did not answer any of the questions that Job had put to Him...God's Presence to Job seemed to be Job's answer to all of the questions he ask of God...God wants us to trust Him and to cling to Him even in our worst of times...And Job and Job's faith did just that...Job fought the good fight and had kept the faith...

Job endured, clung to his faith, and saw that God is to Wonderful for Words and is in control of all things...