“Should we accept only good from God and not adversity?” Job 2:10
As believers in Christ are ushered into Heaven, I speculate there will be a long line formed to ask God one big question about this life down here. And at the very top will likely be, “why do bad things happen to good people.” Or, heading in the other direction, some suffering believers may have looked across the fence at their worldly neighbors and are ready to ask God the question, “why do good things happen to bad people?” Regardless of the phrasing of your question to God, the reasoning is the same; God I’m trying to figure out how you work, and I just can’t seem to see your big picture. And therein lies our problem. Trying to understand the thinking and reasoning of God will only leave us more frustrated than the problem that lies before us.
Many chapters of Job are just hard to read, and chapter 2 is at the top of the list. After God allows satan to take all the physical possessions Job has, including his kids, Job still refuses to curse God. In fact, we’re told that “he still held fast his integrity.” Job was a deep man and at the core of his depth lied a love and fear of God that should motivate even the most pious believer to travel to where Job’s faith resided. But satan is ever so crafty, he gets God to agree to let him dial up the heat under Job. And the heat gets so hot it makes me recoil. Satan goes right for the jugular and strikes the health of Job. Folks, if you want to make a man or women crumble, take their health away. Satan strikes Job with one of the most painful afflictions not only seen in scripture, but maybe in all of literature. Intense never-ending pain, burning fever, loss of vision, emaciation, sleeplessness, nightmares, difficulty breathing, rotting teeth, and on top of it all, putrid fleshly sores from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet. As a result of his physical ailment, we see Job suffering also with intense depression, a failed marriage, and a crumbling social relationship with his three best friends. The acute physical pain was instrumental in also toppling Job’s emotional and social world. So, the question looms in front of us like a big pink elephant sitting in the corner. Why?
Even in his pitiful, painful state the answer comes to us directly from Job, not some wise philosopher, acclaimed psychologist, or religious icon. The very man that sat in the ashes of the city dump scraping his sores with a broken piece of pottery had the tremendous depth of faith to see that reasoning in the “whys” of God was fruitless. Job sees that all blessings are a gift from God, and we readily and easily receive them with joy. So why then when bad happens in our life do we reject it as if it also were not of God? Job understands that God’s thinking and reasoning are much higher than his own. And he sees that he is not called to understand God, only believe in Him with great faith. God chooses to reveal just a glimpse of this logic to us in Matthew 5:45, “For He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” Folks, reasoning with the rain will cost you. It will cost you great time that you could be spending serving and loving the Lord. It will cost you great effort as you expel tremendous energy trying to understand something that you cannot. And it will ultimately cost you proximity to Christ, as when you do not find the answers you think you deserve, you begin to doubt the power of the plan of God. Today, don’t question good and bad in your own limited human reasoning, it was never meant for you to understand. Instead, in the good example of Job, simply hold fast to God in great faith. No matter your circumstances, love Jesus and trust in His perfect plan for your life. For in the very throes of our “bad” comes some of the biggest growth in Christ.
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8-9
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