Through Pain and Suffering
(Read Job 38)
My good buddy (J) told me of the serious illness of a long time friend. We talked on the phone the other day and he shared some of the details about the prognosis. It’s not good. Probably a matter of days or weeks before hospice care. My friend is a strong believer who is really hurting now. “I can’t help but wonder why God would allow him to suffer like that,” (J) inquired.
“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?
On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone—
while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels shouted for joy?”
Job 38:4-7
From what we know, Job’s life was gravy before God agreed to let Satan disrupt things. One day, he had almost everything he could ever want. The next day, Job lost all ten of his children, his livestock, and eventually his health. As the lesson goes, Job always kept his faith in God, but that didn’t mean he understood or agreed with what was happening in his life. He questioned God and God in no uncertain terms, put Job straight. “Where were you when I created the world?” God said with a bit of sarcasm. In other words, you don’t know nothin’.
Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people, many people question. It’s OK to ask this as long as you realize that the question shows a lack of understanding as to who God really is. God is good, righteous, merciful, and loving. With an estimated 200 billion trillion stars in the universe, many of which generate much more power than our sun, I imagine that the Creator of all of this, has a level of understanding of things I can never comprehend. Like a mouse in a maze, we only see what’s on our level. God sees all.
That by itself is not a sufficient answer for someone who has lost a child, been diagnosed with cancer, lost a job, gotten divorced, or been attacked, etc… Keep in mind that God uses bad things for His ultimate and lasting good even while we don’t see it. One of the Bible’s early patriarchs, Joseph, was abandoned, sold into slavery, accused of rape, and imprisoned — yet he ended up being Egypt’s #2, and led a nation through a famine.
You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.
Genesis 50:20
Joseph spent about 17 years as a servant or prisoner. He always trusted God’s goodness but felt deep despair and helplessness through the dark years. Going from slave to the second most powerful man in Egypt, Joseph always remained faithful and followed God’s lead throughout. Suffering can be a way for God to guide us. God’s purpose for our suffering also shows us how we desperately need Him in every area of our lives. Rather than questioning “why me,” asking God for discernment can bring us to a clearer understanding of why He allowed something to occur.
There’s a common remark from non-believers that says God is either all-powerful but not good enough to stop evil and suffering, or He is all-good but not powerful enough to stop evil and suffering. Without knowledge of the grace of God, I don’t blame people for missing some key points. First of all, God’s permission is not the same as His approval. The horrendous things we do to each other tell more about how depraved we are than how incapable God is to prevent them. Secondly, while bad things do happen to good people, Christians see things from an eternal perspective. We know that we will live in perfect harmony after we leave this temporary fallen world. This doesn’t fix anything but it does give us hope. Shortly before she was executed by her sister Queen Elizabeth I, Mary Queen of Scots said, “In my end is my beginning.”
Sometimes, we make mistakes and our free will get’s us punished. Sometimes, God allows us to experience the consequences of these poor choices. Don’t forget, bad things happen to bad people too. Bad things don’t affect one type of person, the journey of life invites them to everyone.
As it is written: “There is none righteous, no, not one; there is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; they have together become unprofitable; there is none who does good, no, not one.”
Romans 3:10-12
I often think about what people went through during the Holocaust in Europe. 6,000,000-11,000,000 million Jews, POWs, Gypsies, and other enemies of the Nazi empire were murdered, not to mention an estimated 20+ million civilians and soldiers in the Soviet Union. Another dictator, Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge killed an estimated 2,000,000 people in Cambodia in the late 1970s. People like to question how could God allow this?
I didn’t include those sobering statistics to depress you. As Paul said in the Romans passage, only God is good. We might be nice, but we’re not good. The nicest person you know doesn’t hold a candle to God. The unthinkable numbers I cited above just illustrate how evil WE can be. A better question than why did God allow these things to happen might be, why did we allow it? We can point our finger at God, but instead should be looking in the mirror? “Jesus wept,” (John 11:35) tells us what God does when we let our free will make choices that go against his world.
Through my own suffering, I look to God for light and guidance. God loves me. He cries through my pain with me.
How long, Lord, must I call for help,
but you do not listen?
Or cry out to you, “Violence!”
but you do not save?
Why do you make me look at injustice?
Why do you tolerate wrongdoing?
Destruction and violence are before me;
there is strife, and conflict abounds.
Therefore the law is paralyzed,
and justice never prevails.
The wicked hem in the righteous,
so that justice is perverted.
Habukkuk 1:1-4
God understands why we ask Him for discernment through our suffering. Instead of correcting the Prophet Habakkuk, God recorded the conversation in the Bible for everyone to read. (J) told me that he was going to visit his sick friend in the hospital maybe for the last time. This friend is the longest acquaintance he’s known since moving here about 34 years ago. His friend survived esophageal cancer and has been battling brain cancer for 2 years. He now has an infection in his brain and the cancer has spread to his lungs.
(J) tragically lost his wife a year ago. Unfortunately, he has tremendous first-hand perspective on pain and suffering. He often tells me he awakes each day to a lonely broken heart. (J) added, “…but I believe we’ll be together again.” Jesus allows suffering so that we might have the capacity to help others with their sorrows. (J) is better equipped to be a source of grace and love for his afflicted friend than most. He would trade this experience for anything, but God has plans that none of us know or can fathom. It’s not our place to understand God’s mysteries, it’s our place to extend God’s grace to others.
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God.
Romans 5:1–2
Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross consoles us and gives us strength to face the brutal things here on earth. We should use real life events as teaching points to our children and non-believers, willing to listen, that we live in a broken world inhabited by sinful people. Our address on earth is temporary and is nothing compared to eternal life in paradise with our Savior.
I didn’t exactly know what to say to (J) as he lamented to me his decision to visit his friend. “You’re the right person for this visit,” I told him. “You’re prepared for this. Don’t worry about what you will say, the words will come to you,” I paraphrased from Jesus’ words in the Bible. God’s love and mercy reversed the sting of death by suffering in our place. He won the war. God will undo all the damage of the Holocaust and every other pain we know and feel.
God doesn’t create suffering. We do. Every living being will experience pain, sorrow, and torment. Some of us will face this head-on, enduring it until we die and evaporate into nothing. Followers of Jesus face it with a confidence that it’s not all there is. Despite all we go through, God’s not done with us yet. I don’t want to suffer, but when I do, at least I know that I have the most powerful friend on my side.
“[God] will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
Revelation 21:4:
Key Applications:
- Read Job 38. What does it speak to you? Are you amazed at Job’s faithfulness? Would you act the same? Don’t assume, practice your commitment to unmovable faith.
- Have you experienced a time when you have been challenged and it ended up being a blessing? Write it down. Pray this blessing each day this week.
- The next time you are going through pain and sorrow, open up to God. Confess that you can only handle it with with His help.
Where else in your life can you live out the teachings of Christ? Look for next week’s Devotion.