QuickThoughts: Job & Suffering
Note on the new "Quick Thoughts" series: I post much more often to my Twitter feed than I do on my blog. Usually this makes sense since tweets tend to be very short and quick to read. Sometimes, however, a tweet will become longer than originally intended and turn into a much longer thread. It is times like that where I will try to post to the blog instead. These will not always be fully-fleshed out articles, but just some quick musings on Scripture or life that I may have.
In the midst of pain most could never imagine, Job wrongly believed God was pouring out His anger upon him. Job used some pretty terrifying and heartbreaking imagery to describe his anguish:
📘 “He has grasped me by the neck and shaken me to pieces;”
Job 16:12
Do you ever feel that God is doing that to you?
Job was never told about the secret meeting between God and Satan; He never found out why he, a blameless man (Job 1:8), was suffering under God’s hand.
Likewise, we may never perceive the cause of our own suffering.
But, if we have repented of our sins and trusted in Christ to bear the wrath of God in our place, we can be sure that God will never grasp us by the neck in anger!
📘 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment…
1 John 4:18
And there is no punishment remaining, no wrath stored up against those whom Christ has redeemed!
📘 Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
Romans 8:1
Give thanks for God’s love, grace, mercy, and righteousness, for His wrath against us for our sins has all been spent!
What do we do with our suffering, then? How should we respond? Should Man find fault with God? Throughout all of his suffering, Job never blamed God (Job 1:22), but He did recognize that his suffering ultimately came from the Lord. Instead, he confessed his lack of knowledge, repented for it, and worshiped God:
📘 Then Job answered Yahweh and said:
I know that You can do all things, and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.
‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have declared that which I did not understand, things too marvelous for me, which I did not know.
‘Hear, now, and I will speak; I will ask You, and You make me know.’ I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; but now my eye sees You; therefore I reject myself, and I repent in dust and ashes.
Job 42:1-6 LSB
The Unworthy Prodigal 
We recently had a message in church that touched on this. We ask for things that we think will make us happy. We don’t always get them because God is sovereign. And as Christians, even when we aren’t happy with things in the world or our lives, we have the inner joy that only Christ gives.
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