On suffering!

Job 9:1-16

1 Then Job spoke again: 2 “Yes, I know all this is true in principle. But how can a person be declared innocent in God’s sight? 3 If someone wanted to take God to court, would it be possible to answer him even once in a thousand times? 4 For God is so wise and so mighty. Who has ever challenged him successfully? 5 “Without warning, he moves the mountains, overturning them in his anger. 6 He shakes the earth from its place, and its foundations tremble. 7 If he commands it, the sun won’t rise and the stars won’t shine. 8 He alone has spread out the heavens and marches on the waves of the sea. 9 He made all the stars—the Bear and Orion, the Pleiades and the constellations of the southern sky. 10 He does great things too marvelous to understand. He performs countless miracles. 11 “Yet when he comes near, I cannot see him. When he moves by, I do not see him go. 12 If he snatches someone in death, who can stop him? Who dares to ask, ‘What are you doing?’ 13 And God does not restrain his anger. Even the monsters of the sea are crushed beneath his feet. 14 “So who am I, that I should try to answer God or even reason with him? 15 Even if I were right, I would have no defense. I could only plead for mercy. 16 And even if I summoned him and he responded, I’m not sure he would listen to me.

Food for thought!

We continue with our quest of why bad things happen to good people? Why does suffering exist? The common understanding is that suffering is due to sin; that suffering is God's way of punishing us for our sins. This theory is far from true. Otherwise, Jesus would not have suffered the way he did. And even Job, how could he have suffered if God declared him is the finest man in all the earth. He is blameless—a man of complete integrity. He fears God and stays away from evil (2:3). Job himself said, Stop assuming my guilt, for I have done no wrong. But as I said, this is the common belief.

Before Job spoke up in today's Reading, one of his friends, Bildad, remarked: Your children must have sinned against him, so their punishment was well deserved. (8:4) For this man, Job's daughter died because of their sin.

As yesterday Frankl Victor told us, If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death human life cannot be complete. In other words, suffering is part of life, just as birth and death are. You cannot come to this life without birth; you cannot leave this life without death; and you cannot live this life without suffering.

As Rick Warren says, God has a purpose behind every problem. He uses circumstances to develop our character. In fact, he depends more on circumstances to make us like Jesus than he depends on our reading the Bible. The reason is obvious: You face circumstances twenty-four hours a day.

Jesus warned us that we would have problems in the world. (Jn 16:33). No one is immune to pain or insulated from suffering, and no one gets to skate through life problem-free. Life is a series of problems. Every time you solve one, another is waiting to take its place. Not all of them are big, but all are significant in God’s growth process for you. Peter assures us that problems are normal, saying, “Don’t be bewildered or surprised when you go through the fiery trials ahead, for this is no strange, unusual thing that is going to happen to you.” (1Pt 4:2).

It is naive to think that you will be spared of suffering. God could have kept Joseph out of jail, (Gen. 39:20-22) kept Daniel out of the lion’s den, (Dan. 6:16-22), kept Jeremiah from being tossed into a slimy pit, (Jer 38:6), kept Paul from being shipwrecked three times, (2Cor 11:25), and kept the three Hebrew young men from being thrown into the blazing furnace (Dan 3:1-26) —but he didn’t. He let those problems happen, and every one of those persons was drawn closer to God as a result.

Problems force us to look to God and depend on him instead of ourselves. Paul testified to this benefit: “We felt we were doomed to die and saw how powerless we were to help ourselves; but that was good, for then we put everything into the hands of God, who alone could save us.” (2Cor 1:9). You’ll never know that God is all you need until God is all you’ve got. Regardless of the cause, none of your problems could happen without God’s permission. So, instead of cursing him, praise him in everything, knowing well that all things work together for good for those who love God (Rom. 8:28).

(Further Reading: Warren, Rick (2008-09-09). The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For? Zondervan. Kindle Edition).