As I conclude this series, I want to bring your attention to one of the most powerful books of the Bible that addresses suffering. We see in the 1st chapter of Job that it was God who asked Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job”? Satan knew what God was asking Him. Satan’s reply was, “the reason why he worships you is because you have this hedge of protection around him”. Satan then challenged God and said, “take your hand off Job and he will curse you”. So God gave Satan permission to take Job's property and children. No one really understands why God allowed this but I think we'll see and understand a little bit more at the end of the story.
In chapter 2 of Job we see his friends show up to comfort him. They do a good job for a little while because all they did was sit in silence and mourn with him. You see, I think sometimes when our friends and family are suffering we just need to crawl in a hole with them and hurt with them. I think a lot of times because they hurt, we hurt and because we hurt we want to make them feel better and that makes it about us. Most of the time when people are suffering I think we would be surprised on how healing it can be, when we just sit with them in their pain.
Job's friends then begin to accuse Job of doing something wrong because of the calamity that was happening to him. Joel suffered well for a little while by keeping his hope in God, but started to get pretty frustrated with his friends. Job, in chapter 31 begins to justify himself by saying things like “I fed the hungry”, “I lead the blind”, “I have clothed the naked” in Chapter 32 we see a young man named Elihu rebukes Job for justifying himself. Then God takes over and begins to rebuke Job as well it was like God saying to Job “really Job”? “You're the one who have fed the hungry”? “You're the one who lead the blind”? You're the one who clothed the naked”? God uses the next several chapters to show Job that it's God who is righteous. You would think if anybody was allowed to justify himself it would be Job, but Job cannot justify himself because his only God who is just. Even when Job was suffering at the hand of Satan that God gave permission to bring calamity. I think we get into this place of self-righteousness, or this type of entitlement when we suffer. I also think we often think God is punishing us when we suffer. As believers we need to remember when we suffer that we cannot make it about God punishing us because God punished our Savior Jesus Christ for our sin. We may never completely understand why we suffer but we can completely understand that God is not punishing us when we are suffering.
In Job chapter 41 is very interesting creature called Leviathan. In Isaiah 27 Leviathan is Satan and I believe in chapter 41 of Job Leviathan is also Satan. If you read chapter 41 in Job, you see God is asking Job can you play with Satan?, can you hook him like a fish?, can you toy with him? Like I do? It's like God saying I use Satan as a tool. I think it's important to understand God uses evil for his glory.
I think the whole story of Job is wrapped up in chapter 42:1-6. Because Job says, “before this my ears have heard of you, but now my eyes see you”. So now we see that Job sees God even clearer than before. is closer to God than before. I believe that God used Satan to bring Job closer to Himself. I am not saying that God makes us suffer so we see him more. Truth is I really don't know why God calls us to suffer. But what I am saying is, that if the fruit of suffering let’s me see God clearer, or brings me closer to God, then bring it!
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