learning through suffering

job is a book about human suffering...it's a great study on suffering that's designed to bring us to God, not drive us from Him. God orchestrates it all. in fact, the writer of the book of job explains that satan isn't even allowed to test job without God's permission. God even puts constraints on how satan can test job's devotion to God and his deep faith. God tells satan, "do whatever you want with everything he possesses, but don't harm him physically" (job 1:12). job's suffering, granted by God's permission, reminds me of a verse in isaiah 45. God says, "I create the light and make the darkness. I send good times and bad times. I, the Lord, am the One who does these things" (45:7). the king james version actually says this: "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things."

though it's frustrating to try and understand why bad things happen, it's encouraging to think that satan, the prince of darkness, isn't even in control of his own domain! hell ain't got any power over anything...period :-) God is in control. the mystery of suffering is meant to bring us to this awareness, even if we can't make sense of all the pain, loss, and devastation; suffering is designed to bring us to a God who is in control. even when it doesn't make sense, we need to find God in our suffering: “people cry out when they are oppressed...yet they don’t ask, ‘where is God my Creator, the one who gives songs in the night?'" (job 35:9-10). our suffering should bring us to a place of learning, just like elihu tells job: "those who learn from their suffering, God delivers from their suffering" (job 36:15).

i recently heard this statement: "living through suffering." within this statement is the notion that you're going to make it through...you're living 'through' it. life continues, no matter how challenging or complicated, but you're living it through and you will come out the other side. there's also the notion that while enduring a great deal in the 'through' process, you're still living. you're living through the suffering. from now on, instead of saying i'm just living with it, i'm going to remind myself that i'm living through it and God will certainly be there on the other side...and of course He's with me in it. in spite of there being no pat answers, and there being the guarantee of suffering in the world (john 16:33), job shows us how God entrusts us with difficult things to position us--to bring us to a place of decision of whether or not we are going to trust Him--because His strength is made perfect in our weakness (2 cor. 12:9). when we are at our weakest point, that's when God is at His strongest.

another point is that job was doing what he knew to do in going through the motions and routine of life, but he needed to learn what God needed him to do. job 12:13 says, "true wisdom and real power belong to God; from Him we learn how to live, and also what to live for." and what is this you might ask? well, i would offer an answer from the very end of the book: "when job prayed for his friends, the Lord restored his fortunes. in fact, the Lord gave him twice as much as before!...so the Lord blessed job in the second half of his life even more than in the beginning" (job 42:10 & 12). God needs us to be present and available in people's lives...praying for them, listening to them, loving them. in the midst of our own suffering, we need to pray and live for the people around us.

after God Himself confronts job in job 38-41, pressing job to pull himself together and reminding him that He sees our suffering and shares our pain, job begins to see that through suffering life can be transformed, deepened, marked with beauty and holiness in remarkable ways that could have never been anticipated before the suffering. from this we can see that even when we feel alone in our suffering, unsure of what God wants us to do, we must realize that the same God who came to job in a whirlwind is the same God who will come to us in our time of need. like job, we will be able to say, "i'm convinced: You can do anything and everything. nothing and no one can upset Your plans" (job 42:2).

job caught a glimpse of this earlier in the book--after outlining everything he had been through--when he says, "still, i know that God lives--the One who gives me back my life" (job 19:25). still further, in job 23:8-10, job says, "i go east, but He is not there. i go west, but i cannot find Him. i do not see Him in the north, for He is hidden. i look to the south, but He is concealed. but He knows where i am going. and when He tests me, i will come out as pure gold." even when we don't know where God is in our suffering, He knows where we are!