Job and the question of suffering...

A friend of mine asked me what to make of the book of Job recently.  The problem with Job is that it appears to be one big bet between God and Satan about whether or not Job is faithful, and the suffering in it seems lacking in compassion and altogether unnecessary.  Along with that, God at first seems rather casual about allowing Satan to ruin Job's life.  It's a tricky book.  Most of us just skip it and pretend it's not there.  I think that's a bad way to use the Bible, as it leads to a slippery slope of a self-selected canon, where we only have the stuff we like, and pretend the other stuff doesn't matter.

The unsatisfying answer as to what's going on in Job is "I don't know."  Frustratingly, there are a lot of places in the Bible where the only conclusive answer we can get is that we don't really understand what is fully going on.

But there's more to Job than just "I don't know," obviously.  There is a lot that we CAN understand from Job, but the answer to why is happens is a bit tricky.  Particularly the relationship between God and Satan (which is from the Hebrew word "ha-satan," appearing here for the first time in the Bible, and meaning simply "the accuser" or more like "the antagonist," like a debate partner).  Clearly the relationship between God and the Satan in this book is more cordial than we expect, but if you look throughout the Bible, Satan is by no means an equal power or threat to God, so God regards him with anger only inasmuch as Satan is causing pain and temptation for people.

Beyond all that (it's easy to get bogged down in that...), to me the larger point of Job is one of HOPE.  Job trusts in God, even when his wife and his friends tell him to curse God.  Elihu, the last friend to speak is the only one who seems to get it right, chastising Job, and yelling at Job's friends.

IN the end, Job cries out to God, asking him "Why?"

The interesting thing is that God doesn't really answer that question.  He comes back at Job saying that Job has nothing to fear, that God is bigger than everything, and that he can save Job from anything.

This is rough at first, but then we see that Job relents at the end, and says "Therefore, I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes." Yet a better reading of this would be "I get that I'm not in control, and I take comfort in you, even while I'm suffering."

Basically, Job starts to think that, as his friends are telling him, our suffering has something to do with our own actions, and likewise that our blessings are a direct result of our obedience to God.

What God is frustrated at is that Job begins to show that his faith in God was dependent on his being blessed, that once those blessings had left him, that his faith in God's ability/intention to save Job from death was weakened.

Job had more faith in the good stuff God gave him as a sign of God's love, than in the fact that God promised to protect him.  He started to think, clearly God does not love me, as he's taken all my stuff.  he said he loves me, but he doesn't.

The trust had moved from faith in God, to faith in God through stuff.

Once the stuff was gone, Job lost faith.

God's frustration with Job is that while Job seemed to really ahve a strong faith, eventually, once the good stuff was gone, he lost faith in God.  His faith was in the blessing, and not in God's word.

Likewise, our faith shouldn't be in our blessings.  It should be in the One who blesses us.  That is real easy when we are surrounded by blessings, but very hard when blessings are hard to see.

God is still with us even when we suffer, even when we think he's abandoned us.  God has promised to never leave us, and he wants us to trust in that, even when we are blinded by pain.

In the end, Job is restored, but hopefully with a faith in God, and not just in God's stuff

(Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac is along the same theme - putting faith in the blessing rather than in the One who blesses.)