JOB

Why do bad things happen to good people? Certainly this is one of the most common questions that keep people from believing in God. How can a “good” God allow his children to suffer? Job gets bombarded with one thing after another. Ha if you think your life is hard, try being Job for a day. He is innocent! His “friends” try to tell him that God is punishing him for sin, but they are wrong. But if God is not punishing Job, what is the purpose of this suffering? God’s purpose is always to bring glory to himself. That may sound pompous, but think about it. He is GOD. THE ONE AND ONLY. THE I AM. The God of the Bible is a jealous God who is in both created the world and controls it. So it would make sense for him to bring glory to himself because there is no one and nothing greater. I wouldn’t want to follow a humble or docile God. I want to follow an all-powerful God.

God often brings glory to himself by bringing the proud down and delighting in the humble. I can’t think of anyone more humble than Job. Yes, he questions God in the midst of his suffering. He cannot understand it. But God essentially says, “Job, what do you know about the world and how it works? Look at the world beneath you and the world above you. Look at the animals. What do you understand about the world I created? Nothing! Who are you to question my ways?” Is God on a power trip? He definitely wants his glory and majesty to be seen, but I think he also wants to show that his might is purposeful (Job 40:14). He has a plan that we cannot understand… and it is for our good. Psalm 84:11 says, For the LORD God is a sun and shield: the LORD will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly. He is asking Job to cling to this promise, and at the end of it all Job’s response is this:

Then Job answered the LORD, and said, I know that thou canst do every thing, and that no thought can be withholden from thee. Who is he that hideth counsel without knowledge? Therefore have I uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not. Hear, I beseech thee, and I will speak: I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me. I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.

His submissive response is hard for us to swallow in our individualistic society, but for me personally, the joy of knowing God comes from submitting to his will and recognizing how small I am compared to his greatness.