Yes…this blog is on suffering…but wait…it will encourage you! Trust me.
Please read the verses below. Job had been through an unbearable ordeal. He lost everything, including his children, his fortune and his health. His wife told him to “curse God and die” (Job 2:9). His friends told him that his sin brought about this misfortune (sounds like some folks today!). Despite all these calamities, he would not blame God.
But look how God restored him. We often talk about Job’s trial, but rarely his restoration.
After Job had prayed for his friends, the Lord restored his fortunes and gave him twice as much as he had before. All his brothers and sisters and everyone who had known him before came and ate with him in his house. They comforted and consoled him over all the trouble the Lord had brought on him, and each one gave him a piece of silver and a gold ring. The Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the former part. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand donkeys. And he also had seven sons and three daughters. The first daughter he named Jemimah, the second Keziah and the third Keren-Happuch. Nowhere in all the land were there found women as beautiful as Job’s daughters, and their father granted them an inheritance along with their brothers. After this, Job lived a hundred and forty years; he saw his children and their children to the fourth generation. And so Job died, an old man and full of years. (Job 42:10-17)
Why is JOB even in the Bible?
Why is this story there? I do not believe it is to warn us that we will go through something as severe as Job. I think this is an extreme situation that is meant to encourage us: “Look at Job. He went through a trial worse than most in human history. He did not turn his back on God. And God rewarded him generously.”
I know many of you find yourselves in fiery trials, life disappointments and feel rejected by God. I’m sure Job, in his confusion, felt very similar. I can’t tell you why you are going through what you are going through, but I can tell you that God sees. Whether He designed it or not, I can’t say. However, I can tell you that He can use it to build your character and your faith. The message of Job is that if we stay loyal to God, even during great suffering, He will restore us in the end—doubly!
None of us are exempt from suffering. Not great preachers nor the janitors who cleaned their churches. I believe in living a life of faith and expecting the blessing of God. But along with that blessing, at least in this life, there are great challenges. There are great disappointments. There are confusing contradictions. Broken families; broken hearts. Betrayals and backstabbings. There are always those to tell you it’s all your fault. “You must have sinned, because God is good.”
Who sinned?
It’s only human nature to assume that someone’s misfortune is a result of their sin. In John 9, Jesus and his disciples encounter a blind man. The disciples asked Yeshua, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (v.2). This was an either/or type of question. But the answer was none of the above. Yeshua says, “This happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him” (v. 4). Then He heals him. In other words, God allowed him to suffer for the result—a mini outpouring in Jerusalem. Still today, we are talking about this miracle. Surely, his suffering resulted in the glory of God.
To be clear, sometimes (and often) it is our sin and mistakes that bring on suffering (see Achan’s sin in Joshua 7). I can look at my own life and know that many of the difficulties that I have encountered were my own fault. I can sit and be condemned about that, or repent and be restored. But often it isn’t a result of our sin. Job had not sinned. The purpose of Job is not to contradict what we know about sin and righteousness.
“But I would remind the reader that the purpose of this book is not to contradict normative OT theology but to provide a balance of truth. All things being equal, sin brings suffering and righteousness blessing. Since Job has successfully endured the test and proved that his righteousness is not rooted in his own selfishness, there is no reason for Job to continue to be tested; his sufferings need to end.”[1]
This is what theologians call the Retribution Principle and it is all throughout the Old Covenant.
Conforming to God’s expectations is rewarded, and violating God’s commands brings punishment … God’s expectations of Israel were delineated in the law and recorded as stipulations of the covenant. The blessings of the covenant would be forfeited if its conditions were not met, though this does not mean that the covenant would become entirely null and void. [2]
Restoring your soul HURTS!
The message of Job is not that sin does not bring suffering. Indeed, it does. The message is to remain faithful amid suffering. “Followers of Messiah are shaped in their faith journeys through suffering, whether the result of one’s faith, mistakes and missteps, or uncontrollable circumstances.”[3] A friend was telling me of a ministry center they bought. The owner told them what bad shape the home was in when they bought it. He said they had to use intense techniques to scraps off years and years of gook from neglect to find the original walls. Only then could they re-wax them and restore them. We are often like those walls and need to go through a painful process to reach our true identity and then our true destiny.
“These unsettling times are like sharp razors, designed to strip away pride, the unessential and mundane in order to make sense of what really matters and to find God, whose ways are beyond our ways in the midst of uncertainty or trauma (Is 55:8).”[4]
The Dark Night of the Soul
John of the Cross, a 16th century mystic wrote in one of the most famous poems in Spanish literature about The Dark Night of the Soul. One goes from a loving relationship with God into a season of confusion or darkness. Yet it is in that darkness that your faith is refined, and you truly become one with the Savior. After Job’s dark night of the soul, God showed up.
The Bible says that God restored Job with children, fortunes and blessings—twice as much. That same word for restore (שוב/shuv) is used in Ps. 23:3: “He refreshes my soul.” Other translations use restore, convert, makes me whole, renews my strength, makes me strong again and keeps me alive. The idea is that the shepherd deeply loves the sheep.
But why would the Ps. 23 sheep need to be restored? What has he endured? Surely he has seen “the shadow of the valley of death!” He knows there are lions and bears that would devour him. Maybe the shepherd saved him from an attack and now, in the safety of the green pastures and quiet waters, he feels protected and can say, “He restored my soul.”
Surely Job could say this after the Lord vindicated him. “God has restored me! He saved my life.”
So be encouraged! You have not suffered like Job. Wait for the Lord. Trust him. After David had been forsaken and slandered, he proclaimed, “I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living” (Ps. 27:13). He understands that his vindication, though it will surely come, may not manifest itself overnight, “Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord” (v. 14).
Don’t give up. It may not come tomorrow, because “The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it” (1 Thess. 5:24).
Footnote: something that might be easy to overlook is that Job gave not only his sons, but his daughters an inheritance. This was not common practice in his day.
[1] Elmer B. Smick, “Job,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: 1 Chronicles–Job (Revised Edition), ed. Tremper Longman III and David E. Garland, vol. 4 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2010), 920. [2] Hill, Andrew E.; Walton, John H.. A Survey of the Old Testament (p. 176). Zondervan Academic. Kindle Edition. [3] Chandler, Diane J.. Christian Spiritual Formation (pp. 79-80). InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition. [4] Chandler, 80.
By Ron Cantor.
Source: Lessons from Job to LIFT YOU UP! (roncantor.com)
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