We recently looked at the Book of Job in Bible study. It’s a tough read. Job was a righteous man. Meaning he was in “right relationship” with God not that he was perfect. He was a successful businessman. “…the richest person in that entire area,” it says in Job 1:3. And, a dedicated, loving, father. He had seven sons and three daughters. Sometimes Job would get up early in the morning and offer a burnt offering for each of them. “For Job said to himself, ‘Perhaps my children have sinned and have cursed God in their hearts.’ This was Job’s regular practice” (Job 1:5).
One day, Satan accuses Job of only being faithful because he is so blessed. God disagrees and to prove His point allows Satan to take away everything Job possesses as long as he does not harm him physically. That’s what Satan does. All of Job’s oxen and donkeys are stolen and his farmhands are killed. Then his sheep and all his shepherds die in a fire. His camels were then stolen by Chaldean raiders who also killed his remaining servants. Lastly, all of his sons and daughters die when the house they are in collapses.
Think about it. Yesterday, you were a wealthy businessman with a large herd, servants, and a big family. Today, you are destitute, and all your children are dead.
When Job does not curse God Satan is frustrated and says, “…[well] take away his health and he will surely curse you [God] to your face” (Job 2:5). So, again, God allows Satan to afflict Job with a case of severely painful boils from head to toe. The exact disease is not known since the term is a general one, but we do know that Job was covered from head to toe with boils that resulted in disfiguration, infection with worms, insomnia, diarrhea, and intense pain. And Job had done nothing to deserve any of this.
That’s partly the point. That in a fallen world we sometimes get hit by things we do not see coming or did anything to deserve. I mean it’s not like we were driving under the influence, speeding, and not wearing our seatbelt, and as a result end up badly injured in a crash. That would be on us. Job hadn’t done anything. He was innocent and sometimes it’s the same with us. Like when we or someone we love doesn’t “do anything wrong” but still ends up with, say, cancer. It’s not like they smoked or something. They were seemingly minding their own business. Oftentimes, like Job, a good person living a good life and, yet they were still stricken. Why them? My mother, father, sister, brother, son, daughter, friend, are good people. Sadly, cancer does not only strike bad people. It is an equal opportunity disease.
Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, “For he [God] gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike” (Matthew 5:45). Yup, it rains on the guilty and the innocent. On the sinner and the saint. That’s simply the reality of being a fallen person living in a fallen world. If you’re bad, tragedy is not guaranteed any more than avoiding it if you’re good. That’s one point in Job’s story. The other major point is how we handle tragedy or heartbreak.
Job kept his faith. “I came naked from my mother’s womb, and I will be naked when I leave,” he says. “The Lord gave me what I had, and the Lord has taken it away. Praise the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21)! He says to his wife, “Should we accept only good things from the hand of God and never anything bad” (Job 2:10)?
The truth is my friends, calamity and misfortune will visit us or someone we love at some point in our lives. Again, that comes with being fallen people who live in a fallen world. The question is how will we react? Will we curse God while overlooking all the blessings He has showered on us for so many years? The poet Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote, “It’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” Are we not blessed to have known our loved ones, if even for a short time rather than to never have had them in our life at all?
I pray that, like Job, even in the midst of the darkest of nights I would be able to praise the Lord for His love, forgiveness, mercy, and blessings.
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