I tiptoed around the corner of the porch to this old weathered beach chair that belonged to my mom. I was hoping to rest after a long day, but he found me. No rest for the weary. 😂
The number one reason people give in various surveys and apologetic debates as to why they don't believe in God is the problem of evil, suffering. Many claim that if there is a God, that God would be good, and therefore, he would not allow room for suffering in his world.
How do they know that? Isn't that presumptuous and closed-minded?
Another group that pushes back on suffering is the Word of Faith movement which is a false form of Christianity that rose up in the U.S. in the last century derived out of New Thought philosophy and New Age law of attraction. Scantly painted with a thin layer of Christian veneer, they teach that one can have what one says and meditates upon. They claim and confess, even writing their desires and wishes down on paper and reading them out loud over and over, "faith comes by hearing" they twist, that it is always God's will to heal and make one prosperous and successful in the here and now.
The Farmer and I were in this movement for decades and never once heard the true Gospel of Jesus Christ unpacked.
Since their theology doesn't include a category for Christian suffering, as you might imagine, the Book of Job is a real problem for these word-faith folks.
They have to try to find a way around it, and they do. "I can do all things through a Bible verse taken out of context." I saw that "verse" on a coffee mug. Funny, but true. In Chapter 3 verse 25, Job says that the thing he so greatly feared had come upon him.
Word of Faith teachers say, "You see? It was Job's fault. He feared, so it came upon him." And presto, just like that, they cancel and delete the entire Book of Job, and ironically, all of the true wealth and glorious riches along with it.
First off, read in context, this verse reveals what each of us fear as humans, loss of health, family, friends, our vocations. This is part and parcel of life in a fallen world, even, I'd say especially for Christians. It reveals how fleeting and fragile life truly is east of Eden which in turn causes us to trust Christ deeper, as God uses our suffering to transform us from one shade of glory to another, and to depend more heavily on Him, not the world's broken, fatal system that will one day require and eat up our soul.
The reality reminds us to always have our eyes fixed on the life to come, not this one, as Job puts it, "You will call, and I will answer; you will yearn for the creature your hands have created." ( 14:15 ) I know, isn't that simply astounding and beautiful?
Clearer, at the beginning of the book we are told that Job is "blameless and upright, fears God and turns from evil."
We are shown God allowing Satan to cause Job's suffering for God's good purposes of revealing Job's good character while also refining him, and then blowing his mind.
I won't spoil the ending.
Wolves in sheep's clothing are "banking" on people not knowing their Bibles. And atheists often find themselves borrowing from other religions to explain suffering because their world view doesn't hold out any hope or reason for it.
Here, tucked in near the center of the Bible, God actually does reveal to us a great deal about human suffering and that our pain is not wasted, if we will have eyes to see, ears to hear, and a mind and heart to understand. And the courage to read it.
💜
