Once, there was a man named Job. This man lived a life of luxury and abundance. He had bountiful harvests of his crops, a beautiful family, and anything his heart desired in this world. Job praised God constantly. He was a good and faithful servant to the Lord, so the Lord blessed him. Job’s whole life had been a blessing from the Lord, and he never knew any differently.
But then a mischievous man came along. He saw all that Job had and how he praised the Lord, but this man was determined to pull people away from God. This man was satan. He did not believe that Job’s faith would endure through trials. He believed that as soon as the blessings of God went away, that Job wouldn’t have reason to be faithful to God. So satan made a proposal to God. He wanted to test the faith of Job. He wanted to take away the blessings of the Lord to see if Job would remain faithful. But God knew Job’s heart, and knew that he was a strong man of God, and He was confident that when Job’s strength failed, that He would lean on Him. So the Lord allowed satan to test Job, but only if he agreed not to physically harm Job. Satan agreed to this, and went about his business of killing, stealing, and destroying.
Then, within the span of a day, 4 tragedies struck the house of Job and Job lost everything he owned and all of his children. Of course, Job was overwhelmed with grief and pain, so he put on clothes of mourning and he sat in the dust in utter despair. He lost everything he had in life, and for the first time, he did not see the blessings of God, and he didn’t understand why. For days he sat in sadness.
Everyone in town knew what had happened to Job, so 3 of Job’s friends come to comfort him in his sadness, however Job’s sadness is so great that he could not see the point of living anymore and he felt that he had done nothing to deserve this punishment. His friends try to make sense of Job’s suffering and they believed he must have sinned in some way to have deserved this much punishment from God, but Job clinged to his innocence, saying that he had no sin to repent from. He then became angry with God. He asked why evil men can live long healthy lives and why those who live good lives are suffering. Job cried out as he failed to see God’s presence in the midst of suffering. But then a 4th person comes along.
This person is younger than Job and his friends, but is full of the spirit of wisdom from the Lord. He explains to Job that God is still a good God, even when we suffer, because through suffering we can draw nearer to God. Not all suffering is a punishment, and just because we follow God does not mean we are free from pain. We still live in a broken world full of evil and wickedness and as a result, sometimes we encounter that evil and wickedness for ourselves. But God is still good, and He sees those that suffer, and when the suffering cry out to the Lord, He listens and delivers them, and because they are delivered from the darkness they learn to trust Him even more.
Then God rushes in and explains His nature to Job. He explains that His ways are higher than our ways, and sometimes we don’t fully understand His motives, but we should trust in Him anyway because even when we can’t make sense of what is around us, we can stand on the truth that God is good and God listens when His children cry out to Him.
After Job hears this, he asks God to forgive Him for not leaning into Him when things got hard, and through simply asking forgiveness from God Job’s life is restored. He has wealth and prosperity far greater than before and through this time of trial Job learns to trust in God with everything, and that God is not only with us during the good times, but He is with us in the bad times, too. He wants us to trust Him enough to cry out to Him when we are suffering, and He will hear our cry and bring us out of trials because there are blessings waiting for us on the other side.
1 Peter 1:6-7 explains this promise from the Lord. “In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the genuineness of your faith — of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire — may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus is revealed.” At some point in our lives, we will experience pain or suffering, but we must learn to lean on God through it all. The pain may not go away immediately, but God will walk with us though the hard times if we trust in Him. He promises to go ahead of us, to be with us, and to never fail or abandon us in Deuteronomy 31:8. He also promises that He will reveal to us treasures far greater than gold and silver stored for us in heaven.
Last month, we were helping teach at a school in Peru. There, we met a woman from Venezuela. Right now, Venezuela is suffering a lot. Because of the corruption in government, there is no food or water and people are thirsty and starving. But this woman, through her faith, managed to escape with her 3 children. It was a difficult journey, and it would have been so easy to be angry with God or to lose faith in His goodness, but she never did. Her journey to Peru helped her deepen her relationship with God because she knew she couldn’t make the journey with her own strength. That was a piece of advice she gave to us while we talked to her: To never ever lose faith in God, because when our strength fails, we always need God to help us through, and He always will if we are faithful.
I hope this is an encouragement to all of you; that no matter where you are, whether things in life are going well, or if you are facing a trial, that God sees you, God is with you, and God wants to help you. Do not look at suffering as a punishment, but rather, consider it an opportunity to praise the Lord, because God will help you in times of trouble if you cry out to Him. Isn’t it incredible that this is the God we serve? The creator of the universe is willing to walk with each and every one of us through our suffering. In fact, God loved us so much that He came down in flesh to suffer for our sake,so that He could bear the burden of our sins for us. How awesome is that!? So I encourage you, when bad things are happening. Try not to let yourself slip into the darkness. We all know that is so easy to do. But rather, cast your cares and your worries onto God, and He will hear you and pull you from your suffering. He will break the chains that bind and will subdue those who are attacking you. Just have faith.
