If you are familiar with the Book of Job, you’ll know that it’s pretty terrifying. Job, his seven sons and three daughters were good people plodding along nicely until Satan and the angels came to God for a discussion about Good and Evil. When Satan opines that Job is pious only because of his wealth, God allows Satan to take away Job’s family and all he owns. Job remains faithful so God allows Satan to inflict horrible boils upon his skin.
Job’s friends are convinced that he must have sinned and needs to repent. Job clings to his innocence and to the injustice of his suffering. After much debate with the friends, God intervenes and asks Job if he has had the experiences and authority of God. God does finally restore Job’s prosperity; he lives for another 140 years and is given new sons and daughters. Presumably, however, he was always waiting for disaster to strike again…
I recount this story because I know a modern Job, someone who has faced more challenges in the last six months than most of us fear to face in a lifetime. You probably know someone similar or, indeed, have had to cope with a series of ghastly events in your own life.
So, what’s your position on all this? Why do some people “roll easily” through life while others constantly face insurrmountable challenges? Where is God in all of this?
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{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
Michelle 07.13.09 at 10:26 am
I found Job in the year that I lost my 30 year old husband in the spring, and had my kitchen destroyed in a house fire the following fall. This last year I have walked with two friends beset by tragedies that are the things of my nightmares. I’ve been reading Barbara Bradford Taylor’s An Altar in the World recently. She has a chapter on Job: The Practice of Pain, which has left me much to contemplate. Job rails at God, and God is silent. Taylor muses “This is how faith looks sometimes: a blunt refusal to stop speaking into the divine silence.” We struggle with why pain of this magnitude exists, but this comment reminds me of the power of a faith so strong it will ask such questions of God, and keep asking them. To cry “why, O Lord” is not to doubt, but to have faith so deep you know in your soul that you will not be chastised for asking.
Eric 07.13.09 at 12:10 pm
One striking thing about the book of Job that has stuck with me for years is the following. In the midst of his suffering and the accusation of his friends Job maintains that if God would just come and talk to him it would all be straightened out. God finally comes, but God’s words are essentially, “I’m God and you’re not.” Amazingly Job responds with words of repentence.
You asked why some people and not others. To me the answer is as mysterious as God’s response to Job, and as uncomfortable. In other words, I certainly don’t know.
You then asked where God is in all of this. I know only one answer. Being in the midst of suffering with God in your life is a whole lot better than being in the midst of suffering without God. God’s responses to me have been blessings and great graces and reassuring love. God is God, and I am not, and my best response is to praise God and gratefully accept the gifts God is giving, even though suffering is included among the gifts.
Maura 07.13.09 at 1:04 pm
It has been a crazy week and I’m still catching up after way too many trips to the doctor with my husband (thank God he is on the mend) so I can’t share anything profound (lol) but I wanted to share with you a song by Natalie Grant that might connect with this topic. the song is HELD and can be found on at http://www.myspace.com/nataliegrant
James 07.13.09 at 8:54 pm
Job portrays vividly that bad things happen to good people. Job did nothing wrong, it almost seems that he is shamed into repentance. Job was a holy and righteous man. We can question God (I think)and we can even have doubt. We are human and Gods ways are not ours to understand,mysteries abound. Someone once said “Being angry with God is the beginning of faith”.
In Jobs time it was thought that for such things to happen to you , Job must have done something to make God very angry. What other explanation could there have been for them. I know that if I did nothing wrong and God took my family away from me and eventually gave me new Sons and Daughters. I would be devestated. I would still wonder why and truly be heartbroken that I would not have my original family back. I think about my little girl being replaced. I would never be the same as I am sure Job was never the same. All the money in the world would not ease the pain.
What I think about Jobs message today is that, Life is difficult and once you accept it ,you trancend and Life becomes easy or mildly difficult. Gods way is not for me to understand, I try to cooperate with His plans the best I can.
A friend of mine once said “That the world is a wonderful place is if does not weaken you,but you have to weaken to know that”
Humbly submitted
Paul 07.14.09 at 7:32 am
Michelle,
I was traveling yesterday and couldn’t get to your response immediately – I’m sorry for the delay in responding.
I cannot begin to imagine the pain of losing a spouse, especially at such a young age and then to have to deal with your home on fire…
On behalf of all that is good, I want to thank you for walking with your two friends as they deal with their own tragedies. Good friends are, quite literally, a God send.
I’ve never read anything by Barbara Bradford Taylor. Is she really worth my time?
Paul
Paul 07.14.09 at 9:21 am
Maura,
Thanks for the link to Natalie Grant. Of course, the first time I listened to the wrong song and wondered what you were thinking about. “Held” does have resonance for the topic although, for some reason, I was unable to connect with her style of singing. My problem.
Paul
Paul 07.14.09 at 9:27 am
Eric,
I found your response deeply moving. Indeed, it is “mysterious” and “uncomfortable,” but I take consolation from your statement that “Being in the midst of suffering with God in your life is a whole lot better than being in the midst of suffering without God.
Paul
Paul 07.14.09 at 9:29 am
James,
You are obviously correct to say that we are humans and that God’s ways are not our ways. You seem to have more faith and/or more humility than I do. This is an area where I struggle mightily.
Paul
Michelle 07.14.09 at 10:29 am
Paul,
Yes, people willing to walk/sit/listen with you along these paths are God sent. The friends who fed me pizza for a year’s worth of Fridays are saints, so, too, the friends who helped me clean up after the fire. And yes, I have found Barbara Brown Taylor (sorry, I had the wrong middle name!) to be worth my time. Her early sermons collected in Mixed Blessings are another worthwhile browse. She is very much aware of God in all things.
James,
Joy layered over grief is a different place, I have found. Like Job, I have been gifted by God with a new family – my second husband (now of 17 years) and two sons. There is no replacing Tom, that deep grief remains a part of me, but it makes the joy deeper, I think. Knowing how quickly life can change keeps you a bit more present in the here and now, drinking in the joy of even the simple things.
Michelle
Gannet Girl 07.14.09 at 7:36 pm
Well . . . we have no choice but to accept that life is difficult, but that acceptance hardly makes it less so.
I do believe that I am one of the friends of whom Michelle speaks. My mother and brother were 28 and almost one when they died; my son died at 24 last year. I have not stopped speaking, but the divine silence has been deafening.