“Have you considered my servant Job?”

 God asked Satan that question in the book of Job, but he also asks us: “Have you considered my servant Job?”

Most of us avoid considering the book of Job because it makes us think about things we don’t want to think about, and brings up questions we don’t want to discuss. If all is well with us, we don’t want to contemplate suffering. If we are suffering now, Job’s story shows us how deep suffering can go.

Job and his friends tried to fit together the puzzle of suffering without having all the pieces. We do that, too. We try to make sense of our troubles without having enough information to complete the picture. We don’t know exactly what’s going on now and we don’t know how it’s all going to end.

Job helps us consider the problem of suffering and see how God speaks to us through it. This book gives us the gift of wisdom for dealing with an unwanted, but common human experience — the experience of suffering.

A Good Man

Job was a good man. People and God said so, and his success in life confirmed it. He was a good father with a family that loved and celebrated each other. He was a prayer warrior for his family and acted as their priest, offering sacrifices for their sins. Job let his children be themselves, but he watched over their souls like a good father.

Behind the Scenes

One day, up the heavenly realms where God lives, Satan appeared before the Lord. He had been roaming the earth, watching people and as Jesus tells us in John 10:10,  Satan was a thief who came to steal, kill and destroy, so we know he was up to no good.

It was God who pointed Satan toward Job, the upright man who feared God, shunned evil and was blameless in the way he lived. Satan wanted to test Job and God agreed. Two days of catastrophe followed; children died, property was destroyed, livestock stolen, and Job’s body was struck with disease. He ends up sitting on an ash heap, scraping the oozing infection from his skin with a pottery shard.

Shared Sorrow

Job’s wife was completely undone by their tragedies. In her despair she asked why Job maintained his integrity, why he didn’t curse God and die. Their shared pain felt worse than death to her, but her husband said, “You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from and God, and not trouble?” Job 2:10

Job did not say, “You are a foolish woman.” He said she sounded like a foolish woman, as if this was the first time he had ever heard her talk that way. She was the mother of the ten beautiful children who all died on the same day and her grief nearly made her lose her mind. But in the midst of his own suffering, Job remembered his responsibility to his wife and acted as a priest to her again, pointing  her back to God.

“In all this,  Job did not sin in what he said.”

Job did not speak unkindly to his suffering wife, he ministered to her.

Seven Days of Comforting Presence

The first seven days after Job’s friends came to see him, they sat with him in silence. It was the most comforting thing they could do. What could they say to a man had lost everything, including his health? It’s terrible to suffer alone; their silent presence was a blessing to Job.

Job Speaks

After seven days, Job spoke. “[He] opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth.” Job 3:1

Grief has stages and Job hit the depression stage early. He should have moved from shock and disbelief through anger and bargaining before getting to depression, but his tragedy didn’t allow for that. His losses struck before he had time to bargain and his respect for God mitigated his anger. All he had left was depression.

Job wished he had never been born or that he had died at birth. He wanted his birthday removed from the calendar; he wished the sun had never risen on hat day. Or, if he had to be born, why couldn’t he have been stillborn? The grave seemed like a restful place compared to the turmoil and weariness of life. This was classic, depressed thinking.

“Why is life given to a man whose way is hidden, whom God has hedged in? For sighing has become my daily food; my groans pour out like water. What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me. I have no peace, no quietness; I have no rest, but only turmoil.” Job 2:23-26.

Eliphaz Speaks

After Job broke his silence, his friend Eliphaz spoke up. For years he watched Job lead the community, helping other people as they suffered, but now that Job was the one suffering, he couldn’t handle it.

Wasn’t Job being a hypocrite? Shouldn’t all those pious words Job gave to others give him confidence and hope now? It was so easy to give advice when the trouble belonged to someone else.

Eliphaz launched into a classic way of thinking about suffering: He claimed the law of retribution. Job was being punished for doing something very bad, some secret sin that only he knew about.

“Consider now: Who, being innocent, has ever perished? Where were the upright ever destroyed?” Job 4:7

But Eliphaz’s thinking was flawed.

Of course, “innocent” people do perish, and the “upright” are destroyed everyday. Not every death is retribution against sin. Not every kind of suffering can be relieved by uncovering some hidden fault in a person.

Eliphaz’s Dream

Eliphaz talked about a dream he had during a troubled night. It made his bones tremble. He felt a spirit glide past him and stop, then a vague form took shape before him. A hushed voice asked, “Can a mortal be more righteous than God? Can even a strong man be more pure than his Maker?” Job 4:15-16

This was a pretty persuasive way to make a point. Who could argue with a spirit who came with a message in the night?

Eliphaz pointed out that God was the judge of his servants and the Lord even charges angels with errors. He asked Job how a man can withstand judgment of his sins, since God was able to crush a man like a moth, break him to pieces, and collapse him like a tent. Eliphaz implied that it must have been God who crushed Job.

Eliphaz’s Mistake

Eliphaz’s mistake is believing that God practices retribution for sin upon people who belong to him. God is a redeemer and life-giver.

“ . . . he does not treat us as our sins deserve. or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him.” Psalm 103:10-13

We all deserve to be punished for our sins, but those who come to God for forgiveness receive his grace instead.

Inexplicable Suffering

Job did not suffer for his sins; he suffered because Satan attacked him. God gave permission for that attack and Job didn’t know why.

Maybe God has given permission for suffering in your life, too. If you have examined your heart and confessed your sins, you are clean, don’t look at your sins anymore. God has taken them away. Look to him now because that is where your hope lies.

Satan Departs

Satan left the scene after chapter two in Job. The rest of the book is about people coming to terms with suffering. There is so much to learn in the days ahead as these people reflect upon God and he speaks to them.