Everyone is trying to explain suffering.
In our own ways, we’re all trying to reconcile how God can still be good in light of whatever would cause us to doubt. Even for those who firmly believe He is good, we want to know how. I believe there’s some level of this wrestle in all of us innately, whether we realize it or not. What happened in the garden of Eden doesn’t always feel sufficient to make sense out of the ways we suffer, and why, and the immeasurable wickedness running rampant around us.
Throughout the Bible, there’s this theme of destruction and restoration. For some reason, it was never hard for me to accept that destruction exists. I always understood that we live in a broken world (for now), and things aren’t going to feel right while we’re here. What’s harder for me is explaining the source of the destruction; and this is where some of us get lost. Have you ever had something going awry in your life and found yourself caught in a swirl of questions about the source of it? “Did I cause this? Is God doing this? Did He cause it or just allow it? Or is it the enemy attacking me?” Sometimes we’re desperate to explain who’s responsible so we can put answers on our pain.
Even while we know we’re never going to fully understand some things until they’re restored, I do believe there’s different ways to steward the mysteries we carry with us in this age. There are different postures we can take toward God while we wade through these mysteries.
There are certainly times we make bad decisions, and pave the way to our own destruction. Sometimes we choose to walk in sin, or let our sin remain even when we see the damage it does, and we pay dearly for it. It doesn’t help us to blame God for the harm caused by our own poor choices, but it can help us immensely to own up to our mistakes and watch how He restores us. I’m not the slightest bit doubtful that God’s mercy is far more than enough to cover the worst of all iniquity and wash it clean for all eternity. Over and over again in Scripture, we see this pattern of sin and consequence, then mercy and redemption. Sin and consequence, mercy and redemption. When we fall short, His blood will never fail to wash us, His grace will never fail to mend us, and His patience will never run out.
But there’s another category of suffering that’s harder to reconcile: How do we explain the destruction that doesn’t come as a result of our own actions?
In the book of Job, we watch as God (who we often assume should protect us from suffering), points Satan toward Job as a subject for testing. Now, if we believe God’s goodness to be contingent on whether or not He gives us easy lives, this story is going to make Him look very cruel. But if we believe God’s kindness to be much deeper than simply protecting us from harm, there’s something extraordinary to be learned from it.
The recap goes like this: Job was a righteous man, blameless before God, with an abundantly rich life. Satan challenges God that Job only loves Him because his life is easy, but if his riches were taken away, he would curse God. So God removes His protection from Job, and allows Satan to test him for a time. Satan proceeds to cause as much destruction as he can possibly cause in Job’s life: takes away his family, his wealth, all his possessions, his physical health, everything. Job was so distraught that he lamented the day he was born.[1]
I’ve heard this story interpreted multiple ways, and there’s no doubt your theology on suffering will determine how you explicate it. Not only was Job a righteous man, but that’s actually why he was chosen for the test. There’s no way to read this and claim Job did something wrong to bring about his own destruction.
There’s an element of this story that we gloss over, but I think it depicts a unique part of suffering we often don’t talk about: the responses of Job’s friends. There are three characters (Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar) who paint a picture for us of some common human responses to suffering we have, and the theology behind them.
When I read these men’s responses to their friend’s torment, I can see their own wrestle trying to define the source of destruction. They do what so many of us do when we’re saddened to see someone suffer: try to explain it. Their knee-jerk reactions are to tell Job he must’ve done something to bring this upon himself, he had to have committed some awful sin to cause all this desolation. Surely God wouldn’t allow all this tragedy in the life of someone blameless who loves Him, right? They go on and on, telling Job to search his life for the sin that caused this and repent.[2] Reading this, we have the luxury of knowing the backstory: There wasn’t some unconfessed sin of Job’s causing this destruction, God had allowed Satan to test him.
This detail of the story is barely a subplot; I’ve never heard a sermon on Eliphaz before. It’s one of the more unexpected experiences of suffering: insensitive responses from well-meaning people. I would even say this was another element of Job’s affliction during that season—being blamed for the destruction in his life by the very people who should’ve been there to comfort him. Someone who loves you, and loves God, can still do a lot of damage with their words if they’re too quick to explain the cause of your circumstances. I believe this side story subplot is there to show us the danger of viewing suffering solely as a punishment from God.
God has no need to punish you for your sin.
Your sin was laid upon His son and crucified with Him over two thousand years ago. The blood of Jesus is more than sufficient to cover a multitude of the most heinous sins. It is finished, sin was crucified, dead, and buried—forever. Do not forget the work of the cross and go back to the days of trying to find a blood pure enough to atone for you.
The idea that God uses suffering to punish us for mistakes can easily send us into a spiral of trying to work our way to being good again… and hopefully we all know not to entertain that idea. Yes, we have free will and can cause destruction in our own lives if we choose to. Yes, “the Lord disciplines those He loves,”[3] as any good parent does. But there is a difference between discipline and atonement—God is not grasping at ways to punish you for sins He already paid for.
There may be seasons we resonate with Job in this story, but maybe you’re Eliphaz or Bildad. Maybe you’re more like one of the friends looking on in agony, wishing you could change things for someone suffering, trying to provide an explanation or solution. Maybe you’re the “fixer” who has not yet learned how to mourn with those who mourn, and trust that God holds ultimate authority over the enemy. He will restore all things, so we don’t have to. We don’t have to rush to fix or explain adversity, God freed us from that, and we’re not capable anyway. He gave us the amazing assignment of weeping with those who weep,[4] stepping into others’ pain out of compassion and bearing each other’s burdens.
Job went through a long, heavy, dramatic emotional roller coaster in the days of his suffering. He certainly did not hold back in telling God how he really felt— he burned with emotion and was brutally honest at every stage. He questioned God’s kindness, His justice, and His mercy. The one thing he did not do is turn away from God.
God approved of Job’s wrestling—He never expected him not to struggle. Even through the lowest points of his crisis, He knew Job would come out victorious. God knew what He was doing, every moment of Job’s agony and confusion, He saw each tiny detail and He saw the grander picture. He reminded Job that He laid the foundations of the earth, He has eyes on every moving part of a huge cosmic design. God knew the enemy would not win, and that He would restore everything in Job’s life tenfold. And “He blessed the latter half of Job’s life even more than the former.”[5]
God is colossal and we’re finite. We tend to either accuse God like Job, or oversimplify God like his friends. We tend to either reduce Him to what fits in our boxes of black and white, or deduce that He can’t be good if He doesn’t fit there. In the end, God assured Job that his friends were wrong, and rebuked them.[6] In their haste to explain complexity, they made matters too simplistic—similar to how we do when we don’t understand. We want this story to explain the “why” behind suffering, but that’s not what it does. It invites us into a gray area of trust in God, while we don’t comprehend things on His level, while we don’t see the whole picture or plan. It invites us to steward the mysteries of God’s justice and kindness in a chaotic and broken world.
One day, Yahweh, the one true God, is going to make everything right. Until then, I dare you to steward the mysteries of Him we can’t comprehend at the same time as you trust Him. Until then, don’t waste time wondering whether or not His mercy is enough to fill oceans. It’s far greater than that.
See how blessed we consider those who have persevered. You have heard of Job’s perseverance,
and have seen the outcome from the Lord. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy.[7]
Autumn Crew is the Managing Editor of FAI Publishing. She lives in the Middle East and serves a number of disciple-making initiatives. She can be reached at autumncrew@faimission.org.
[1] Job 1-2
[2] Job 4, 8, 15, 18, 20
[3] Psalm 94:12, Proverbs 3:11-12, Hebrews 12:3–11
[4] Romans 12:15
[5] Job 42:10-17
[6] Job 42
[7] James 5:11