That book of Job is a rough one … <3
The past few days I have been reading from Job in a One Year study Bible. I have to say, this book of the Bible is exhausting for me. It is like reading a comment battle on Facebook or listening to those awful “news” programs where the “reporter” and the Interview are exchanging barbs and interrupting each other.
It is difficult from beginning to end to sort through. If you can read the opening passages and be like, okay that’s cool, you and I are very different. Satan was roaming the earth looking for someone to destroy and God suggests Job. I understand there is more to the dialogue than that, but in a nutshell…this is the introduction.
The conversations with the various friends is confusing, even with study notes. And the whole time I was reading it, I kept thinking of my recent reading of the Ten Boom family and their friends as they protected Jews and fellow resistance workers against the evil of the Nazi’s. While you can see God’s hand of protection over Corrie and her family, they suffer greatly and in horrific ways throughout the time of the occupation until the final end of the war.
I think of the ways she would complain and feel anger and then her sister, Betsie, would gently lead her back to faith. I think of how, after the war, she traveled the world brining healing and forgiveness to so many people, both Jews, Nazis and survivors of the war.
The one thing I am gleaning from the study is something new I am learning using this study material. The friends and Job were not privy to what was happening in the world we cannot see. The battle waged in heaven was manifested on earth, as it is daily in our lives. They were trying to understand things from what they could see in the visible, physical and did not know, could not know, what was happening in the heavenly realms.
When tragedy comes out of nowhere in spite of our best efforts to avoid it, we ask hard questions. We wonder about God’s love, we wonder what we have done, we wonder how long we will suffer and we move through a variety of emotions and feelings. There is a disconnect between what we are experiencing and what is going on in the spiritual side.
I am not to the concluding part of the book, which is the part I go to when I find myself in the throes of wanting to give it all up. God will question Job and when I read those questions in my own times of trials, it reminds me who He is and that He does indeed love us.
I also am reminded when I ask why Job had to suffer, why Corrie and Betsie and all the others had to suffer, why today there are so many who suffer from unjust and unmerited circumstances; that God did not spare His own Son from suffering.
1 Peter 4:13 is a verse that points to the sufferings of this earth as the spiritual warfare Christ encountered when He suffered on the Cross. Job says in the early part of the book to his wife that we willingly accept the good and the happy the blessings of this life, why should we also not accept the sufferings and sorrow.
If you are suffering today, for yourself or for someone you love, lean hard into the arms of our Savior who suffered betrayal, mocking, brutality, injustice, separation from God and death. His resurrection and ascension have purchased for us eternal life and in His arms you can rest when this earthly life presses hard against you.
You are not a pawn in some cosmic game or the victim of the unrighteousness of this world. Life is extremely difficult and we simply do not know all the information needed to explain why this or that had to happen. We can ask the hard questions to God, we can process all the thoughts and emotions and God welcomes this conversation to happen as we go to Him.
But in the end, remember most of all that you are deeply and dearly loved and held and you can take heart, for He has overcome the world. <3