Week of November 15

What do we do when God does not answer the question, “Why am I suffering?” Job models using our God-given minds and hearts to respond to Him in faith. God has demonstrated the vastness of His person and the scope of His reach into areas well beyond anything that Job can comprehend. The contrite, suffering man clearly grasped the implications of God’s divine words. So, he worships God. Let’s discover ways that our suffering can temper our faith and produce praise to God, too.

Job reaches a powerful awareness in chapter forty-two where he comes to terms with his finitude in contrast to God’s infinite person. We should notice that Job repents of having challenged God’s justice in his speeches; however, he did not confess that he had done something to deserve his sufferings. His circumstances have provided him with a deeper and richer awareness of God’s nature and activity in the world. We also can gain new insight into God and His ways when we walk through suffering. Job’s testimony will aid us in discovering newfound awareness of God’s person and purposes.

God is all-powerful, and His purposes are never thwarted. He alone exercises might, especially over the moral sphere where “he puts down evil and brings to pass his holy will” (EBC). We may find such a confession difficult in our age that appears to limit God’s knowledge, power, and, in some cases, goodness. Our first confession that truly makes sense in this world of evil and suffering is: “He is God, and I am not!” 

God still rules over the universe. Job opens his mouth to tell God that he received God’s message loud and clear. The Lord is not an absent deity and His purpose is all that counts. Job states that there is nothing else that he needs to know except, perhaps, that this Lord of the universe was his friend (42:7-8; cf. John 15:13, 15; “that someone lay down his life for his friends” and “I have called you friends”). If you are like me, then you often need the closeness of God when you suffer. So, does God ever draw near to Job? To us?

God’s purity exposes our vanity. Job answers these questions (cf. vv. 5-6). He claims that he had heard about God, but now his oft-requested prayer to come into His presence had been answered! Interestingly, once Job finds himself there, he senses the need to withdraw his rash statements about God. He was the one who had pulled back from God. Job rejects what he had said about God (v. 6). Secondly, he “repents,” not of sin that caused his suffering, but of the wrong assertion about God’s justice (cf. 38:2, 40:3). Job rids himself of the comic-book-character God and, as a result, finds his comfort in an encounter with the real Lord (v. 5b). He ultimately finds consolation and comfort, even though he still suffered. We need this God.

I recall a man who suffered a terrible illness. The doctor met the family in the hospital waiting room and told them that there was nothing more that medicine could do. At that moment, we simply prayed with the belief that God “can do.” We waited in faith to see if His purpose was “will do,” meaning God will restore him to health. A radical surgery was performed, and the man lived many more years. It was abundantly evident that his travail became a pathway to transformation, because he saw God and, after his recovery, lived each new day in an entirely different way (Romans 8:28, 31-39). 

Here is the spiritual question. Why do we serve God? First, Job’s example reminds us that faith will be tested and tempered (James 1:2-4). He teaches us that it is easy to wear blinders about who is in control of life until we are personally confronted with suffering. It is also easy to develop a textbook theology until one is confronted with personal pain. Secondly, we will miss the conclusion of Job, if we do not recall the introduction. The underlying question of the book is “not why the righteous suffer, but whether Job served God for nothing” (1:9-11; NAC). Today’s devotional causes us to ask why we follow God. The Lord calls us to live out our response to the question.

1. Jot down the trials you face presently. Have you felt isolated from God? Have you begun to doubt Him in some way? What will you release to God so that you begin to walk in full trust? 

2. For Families: Have your children ever seen what happens to flowers or plants opening up to the sun, or growing toward the sun? I (Karen) have houseplants in my sun room, and I must turn them every so often, because they grow toward the light. 

So that all sides have the same opportunity to receive the light and conduct their work of photosynthesis, I rotate them. This helps them develop evenly, too. The plants harness the energy in sunlight and use it to fuse water (absorbed from the soil) and carbon dioxide (absorbed from the air) to form simple sugars, releasing oxygen as a by-product. If the plants do not receive sunlight, they die. 

Job was like the plants, and we are too. He decided to turn his face fully toward God in trust, knowing that God would help him to live a flourishing life. Only when we do the same, and work out God’s plans for us, can we be healthy, spiritually alive, and growing. Your children might like to observe a plant in your home and to hear how God wants us to be like plants in that special way!

May your paths be straight,
Larry C. Ashlock