I write this article originally in November and came across it the other day, and felt that it might help someone going through difficult times right now. It's a bit long but please read and enjoy!
Jobservations: Facing Difficult Times
This nice sounding, “leap-yearish,” Olympian year of 2008 certainly has been far from nice for many people that I know personally and for many others in this world. War and struggle continue in the Middle East without much hope of ending or of our troops returning home (so what else is new?); rather than decreasing, persecution and torture of believers seems to be spreading, most recently worsening in India but elsewhere as well; there have been unexpected deaths and serious illnesses hitting the lives of friends and relatives of mine; unemployment and ruin seem to be taking a stranglehold in lives, and believers are not exempt from this; our nation and as a result many others around the world are watching their economies circling in the rim, waiting for the final flush. Every time I pick up the newspaper and see a headline, instead of saying “Oh no” I find myself saying, “Now what?” This reminds me of a tragic day that hit a man from the land of Uz (no, not Oz) by the name of Job. Disaster upon disaster was pronounced to him ranging from the theft of his cattle to the deaths of all his children, with each of the subsequent messengers mournfully telling him, “And I alone was left to tell you.”
It is at times like these that our faith is put to its most significant test and our trust in God is challenged. Yet it is also in these times that we find out how God can amazingly enable and equip us to endure, and how He works despite the gloom that would engulf us. What was Job’s response to this day of gloom, death, and horrific loss? “Then Job arose, tore his robe, and shaved his head; and he fell to the ground and worshiped. And he said: ‘Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return there. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.’ In all this Job did not sin nor charge God with wrong” (Job 1:20-22, NKJV). How could he react this way? It is because Job knew his God and had his heart in the right place, as broken as it was. Let’s consider some of the things we need to keep in mind from Job’s experience when we face trials and difficulties, as well as how (and how not) to respond to those who are facing such trials and grief.
Remember the Source of Spiritual Attack
Job’s troubles began with accusation by Satan before God’s throne one ominous day. Satan asked for permission to do all he could to bring down this man of God and, as shocking as it is to us, God gave him permission to attack Job within certain limits. Satan’s goal is to wipe us out with our trials, but God will only let things go so far because He knows what we can handle, and He controls the thermostat when things get hot! God has a better purpose in mind by allowing trials in our lives which is to transform our lives and help us grow, and as a result to bring glory to Him. God turns things around to achieve His purpose despite the attacks.
God Doesn’t Disappear in Times of Disaster
Job had reason to feel that God disappeared and no longer cared about him if anyone did, and that his life of righteousness had been in vain. There are several places in the long debates between Job and his friends that Job complained that he felt that he had lost touch with God and couldn’t understand why He had done the things He did to him. In the midst of great sorrow and suffering our view of reality both physically and spiritually can become distorted. Yet Job knew that God hadn’t vanished; he just wanted to know how he could find Him and deal with why these things had happened. We must remember that God is still there in the midst of all of our difficulties. Mrs. Job was crushed and blurted out in despair, “Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die!” (Job 2:9). Let’s not be too hard on her. She thought God had vanished and brought this disaster upon them, and I’d like to see one of us do better in the midst of losing all of our children in one moment of time. However, Job replied with what is the vital attitude for us in facing personal disasters and difficulties: “But he said to her, ‘You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?’ In all this Job did not sin with his lips (Job 2:10, NKJV).”
Facing or Helping Someone in the Midst of Affliction
Let me be blunt for a moment. Bad things happen to people whether they are good, bad or indifferent. Sin entered this world and with it the human heart was corrupted, and our bodies underwent the impact of the curse springing from sin. At times God’s children have experienced bad things as well for no apparent reason, no apparent sin involved, yet God allowed tragedy to strike their lives. How do we respond to someone who faces such times? True, Job’s experience was extreme but sadly not unique. What do we do when a Christian young woman is raped in the church parking lot? What about when a child with a severe disability to believing parents? What about when children who are raped, abused, kidnapped, tortured, or killed in a horrible accident or by a wicked person? What about when someone following what they believed was God’s will sees their life come apart at the seams as a result, or so it appears? What about a man or woman who loses their spouse and is left alone to care for their young children or family? How do you comfort a teenager who was perfectly healthy one minute and in a moment of time breaks their neck or some other tragic event and is paralyzed for the rest of their lives? These are not just the imaginings of your author, but these are all things that have really happened to God’s people for no known reason, no explanation, and no sin on their part. What do we do?
Job’s comforters as they should have been. This late spring brought the tragic death of the son of our log-time pastor, who left behind a wife, a two year old and a baby on the way. Another couple of months later my cousin died in her lat 30s after a long, difficult battle with M.S. The first thing I did was to go to the card section of our store and look through the condolence section to send to the families involved. I discovered that as well meaning as these cards are, many of them are preachy or telling the grieving person to buck up and get back on the road to normal. What do people need when in the midst of difficulty like this? What Job’s comforter’s did at first when they arrived to console him:
Now when Job's three friends heard of all this adversity that had come upon him, each one came from his own place — Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. For they had made an appointment together to come and mourn with him, and to comfort him. And when they raised their eyes from afar, and did not recognize him, they lifted their voices and wept; and each one tore his robe and sprinkled dust on his head toward heaven. So they sat down with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his grief was very great (Job 2:11-13, NJKV).
We often feel compelled to say something, to have some brilliant cliché to share or to proclaim the Scriptures to someone in the midst of their grief and loss, but that isn’t always the best. The best is to be there for them, to cry with, pray with, listen to, and help those who suffer. There is nothing wrong with weeping with those who weep, and in fact we are commanded to just as much as we are to rejoice with those who rejoice (Romans 12:15). We are also to “Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2, NKJV). A friend of ours told my wife and I about a great little book that was of help to her at a time of great grief in her life, which we now carry in our store, Letter to a Grieving Heart. It begins as follows:[1]
I am so sorry you have to face life with this kind of wound. I don’t have any answers. Or any magic words.
In fact, I would rather sit or walk with you for a silent hour than fill your ears with words that would ring hollow and fall so short of real comfort. I would rather do your dishes. Or restock your refrigerator. Or write out the checks to pay your bills, answer your phone, or take care of other mundane details…
Don’t accept or jump to conclusions. Job’s friends made the mistake after their consoling him of thinking that it was their job to get Job back right with God. They proceeded under total assumption, not fact, to try and “fix” things. We also have a tendency when things go wrong to blame ourselves, to think God is punishing us, or whatever myriad things that Satan would use to crush our conscience and heart in the midst of grief. Certainly we must make sure there are no un-confessed sins that might be in our lives and should confess them to the Lord as soon as we’re aware of them (1 John 1:9) but it is wrong to automatically assume that our suffering is the result of some sin we are being punished for, or that our goodness and righteous living is a guarantee against such things either. Consider some of these “Job-servations” about the wrong assumptions made both by Job himself and his friends regarding his suffering:
Job’s feelings: Job felt his life had been in vain and worthless, and wished he had never been born because of the suffering that took place. Yet we see throughout the book that Job continued to maintain that he had followed God and couldn’t understand why this happened to him. There are glimpses of hope mixed in with his great sorrow, but he still had lessons himself to learn about these things. He seemed to be riding a roller coaster of emotion from confidence to deepest despair, and for those in grief or great suffering this is completely typical. It is called being human. Don’t let others condemn you or make you doubt God either because of your humanity. He is gracious to us and remembers that we are but dust, a failing dirt clod with life breathed into it! (Psalm 103:8-14). Sadly, Job’s comforters, despite being human themselves, were far from humane in their treatment of Job’s suffering.
Job’s friends’ beliefs and accusations: Job’s buddies believed that his children all died because of either Job’s or their own unrighteousness or sin, and that righteous living will help Job to get back to the person he should be and experience God’s blessing again. Despite his protests that he knew of nothing that he had done wrong, they continued to accuse and accelerate their attacks on him. This is not the way to help someone in the midst of their difficulty and grief. Let them express their feelings. It isn’t the time to debate. Remind them of your love for them and for goodness sake don’t jump to conclusions that you know nothing about. Be there for them and don’t judge them. Leave your philosophizing at home and watch what you say. Remember in the end it was Job’s friends who needed prayer to avoid big troubles because of their treatment of him!
Glimpses of Hope and God
At the end of this long book of debate on human suffering, God stepped in and redirected both Job and his “comforters,” but guess what? God had been there all along! He never went anywhere. He was there when Satan asked permission to wipe Job out, and despite the great suffering allowed, God had His hand on the thermostat of Job’s life. God was there when He allowed the destruction of a man’s family and life. He was there when Job collapsed, yet not into utter despair, but in worship of the God who remained true and worthy despite the fall of all else in Job’s life. Be clear that you understand that God gets no pleasure from allowing His children to suffer (Lamentations 3:33), but He can gain glory and we can experience good as we endure these difficult things. Job began to gain glimpses of this in the midst of all that he had to face:
1. There is a need for a mediator between us and God, one who can lay his hand on us both and relate to what we have gone through (Job 9:32-35). God loved us so much that He provided us that Mediator, Jesus Christ, who has been through our human experience so He an come to our salvation and aid in the midst of our sorrows; He is a God who has drawn us near and is not far from understanding our weaknesses, our sorrows, our pain (see 1 Timothy 2:5; Hebrews 2:18; 4:15-16).
2. There is something beyond this human difficulty, and that is unexplainable hope. In one of the most famous passages of the Old Testament, in fact one I read some years ago at my grandmother’s funeral, is Job 19:25-27: “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and He shall stand at last on the earth; and after my skin is destroyed, this I know, that in my flesh I shall see God, Whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. How my heart yearns within me! (NKJV)” We have the great assurance that as His child we have a hope beyond this life and its sorrows. One day we will all be transformed from this rough glory to true Glory when we see Him as He is, and that is in itself a source of great hope (1 John 3:1-3). We must take on an eternal focus and not on these temporal although painful difficulties (2 Corinthians 4:16-18). As the author of Hebrews put it, “And so, dear brothers and sisters who belong to God and are partners with those called to heaven, think carefully about this Jesus whom we declare to be God's messenger and High Priest” (Hebrews 3:1, New Living Translation). This High Priest knows your sorrow and pain. Because of His help and through confidence in Him despite the rain pouring on your life, “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7, NKJV).
3. One final lesson Job learned that brings us past our sufferings and trials to renewed hope is in how God responded in the end of this long book and what it teaches us: God is still God, is still in control, and is still good and worthy of worship despite what our circumstances may tell us. Job 38:1 tells us that God answered Job out of the whirlwind, out of the very thing that had brought destruction and pain to his life. Some of the things that God reminded Job of were that He was creator of all and master of all creation, His careful care of all He created, His great power and sovereignty, and most of all His being beyond our full understanding and “figuring out.” Job had heard what he needed to hear to accept that this was God’s best, repented of all of his self-righteous thoughts and struggles in grief, and God, out of grace, restored him. We may not always have the complete restoration that Job did, receiving double of all he lost materially, but we will receive double the growth and peace and joy in the Lord that we had before affliction and other difficulties hit our lives. Remember that the refining process of anything valuable involves that the heat be turned way up, melting away the dross of our lives, and if God has allowed such trials to hit your life, you must be pretty valuable to Him.
[1] Billy Sprague, Letter to a Grieving Heart (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 2001), p. 5.
© 2008, Thomas Klock, Psalm 72:8 Communications Services, Cambria CA 93428. All Rights Reserved.
It is at times like these that our faith is put to its most significant test and our trust in God is challenged. Yet it is also in these times that we find out how God can amazingly enable and equip us to endure, and how He works despite the gloom that would engulf us. What was Job’s response to this day of gloom, death, and horrific loss? “Then Job arose, tore his robe, and shaved his head; and he fell to the ground and worshiped. And he said: ‘Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return there. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.’ In all this Job did not sin nor charge God with wrong” (Job 1:20-22, NKJV). How could he react this way? It is because Job knew his God and had his heart in the right place, as broken as it was. Let’s consider some of the things we need to keep in mind from Job’s experience when we face trials and difficulties, as well as how (and how not) to respond to those who are facing such trials and grief.
Remember the Source of Spiritual Attack
Job’s troubles began with accusation by Satan before God’s throne one ominous day. Satan asked for permission to do all he could to bring down this man of God and, as shocking as it is to us, God gave him permission to attack Job within certain limits. Satan’s goal is to wipe us out with our trials, but God will only let things go so far because He knows what we can handle, and He controls the thermostat when things get hot! God has a better purpose in mind by allowing trials in our lives which is to transform our lives and help us grow, and as a result to bring glory to Him. God turns things around to achieve His purpose despite the attacks.
God Doesn’t Disappear in Times of Disaster
Job had reason to feel that God disappeared and no longer cared about him if anyone did, and that his life of righteousness had been in vain. There are several places in the long debates between Job and his friends that Job complained that he felt that he had lost touch with God and couldn’t understand why He had done the things He did to him. In the midst of great sorrow and suffering our view of reality both physically and spiritually can become distorted. Yet Job knew that God hadn’t vanished; he just wanted to know how he could find Him and deal with why these things had happened. We must remember that God is still there in the midst of all of our difficulties. Mrs. Job was crushed and blurted out in despair, “Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die!” (Job 2:9). Let’s not be too hard on her. She thought God had vanished and brought this disaster upon them, and I’d like to see one of us do better in the midst of losing all of our children in one moment of time. However, Job replied with what is the vital attitude for us in facing personal disasters and difficulties: “But he said to her, ‘You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?’ In all this Job did not sin with his lips (Job 2:10, NKJV).”
Facing or Helping Someone in the Midst of Affliction
Let me be blunt for a moment. Bad things happen to people whether they are good, bad or indifferent. Sin entered this world and with it the human heart was corrupted, and our bodies underwent the impact of the curse springing from sin. At times God’s children have experienced bad things as well for no apparent reason, no apparent sin involved, yet God allowed tragedy to strike their lives. How do we respond to someone who faces such times? True, Job’s experience was extreme but sadly not unique. What do we do when a Christian young woman is raped in the church parking lot? What about when a child with a severe disability to believing parents? What about when children who are raped, abused, kidnapped, tortured, or killed in a horrible accident or by a wicked person? What about when someone following what they believed was God’s will sees their life come apart at the seams as a result, or so it appears? What about a man or woman who loses their spouse and is left alone to care for their young children or family? How do you comfort a teenager who was perfectly healthy one minute and in a moment of time breaks their neck or some other tragic event and is paralyzed for the rest of their lives? These are not just the imaginings of your author, but these are all things that have really happened to God’s people for no known reason, no explanation, and no sin on their part. What do we do?
Job’s comforters as they should have been. This late spring brought the tragic death of the son of our log-time pastor, who left behind a wife, a two year old and a baby on the way. Another couple of months later my cousin died in her lat 30s after a long, difficult battle with M.S. The first thing I did was to go to the card section of our store and look through the condolence section to send to the families involved. I discovered that as well meaning as these cards are, many of them are preachy or telling the grieving person to buck up and get back on the road to normal. What do people need when in the midst of difficulty like this? What Job’s comforter’s did at first when they arrived to console him:
Now when Job's three friends heard of all this adversity that had come upon him, each one came from his own place — Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. For they had made an appointment together to come and mourn with him, and to comfort him. And when they raised their eyes from afar, and did not recognize him, they lifted their voices and wept; and each one tore his robe and sprinkled dust on his head toward heaven. So they sat down with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his grief was very great (Job 2:11-13, NJKV).
We often feel compelled to say something, to have some brilliant cliché to share or to proclaim the Scriptures to someone in the midst of their grief and loss, but that isn’t always the best. The best is to be there for them, to cry with, pray with, listen to, and help those who suffer. There is nothing wrong with weeping with those who weep, and in fact we are commanded to just as much as we are to rejoice with those who rejoice (Romans 12:15). We are also to “Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2, NKJV). A friend of ours told my wife and I about a great little book that was of help to her at a time of great grief in her life, which we now carry in our store, Letter to a Grieving Heart. It begins as follows:[1]
I am so sorry you have to face life with this kind of wound. I don’t have any answers. Or any magic words.
In fact, I would rather sit or walk with you for a silent hour than fill your ears with words that would ring hollow and fall so short of real comfort. I would rather do your dishes. Or restock your refrigerator. Or write out the checks to pay your bills, answer your phone, or take care of other mundane details…
Don’t accept or jump to conclusions. Job’s friends made the mistake after their consoling him of thinking that it was their job to get Job back right with God. They proceeded under total assumption, not fact, to try and “fix” things. We also have a tendency when things go wrong to blame ourselves, to think God is punishing us, or whatever myriad things that Satan would use to crush our conscience and heart in the midst of grief. Certainly we must make sure there are no un-confessed sins that might be in our lives and should confess them to the Lord as soon as we’re aware of them (1 John 1:9) but it is wrong to automatically assume that our suffering is the result of some sin we are being punished for, or that our goodness and righteous living is a guarantee against such things either. Consider some of these “Job-servations” about the wrong assumptions made both by Job himself and his friends regarding his suffering:
Job’s feelings: Job felt his life had been in vain and worthless, and wished he had never been born because of the suffering that took place. Yet we see throughout the book that Job continued to maintain that he had followed God and couldn’t understand why this happened to him. There are glimpses of hope mixed in with his great sorrow, but he still had lessons himself to learn about these things. He seemed to be riding a roller coaster of emotion from confidence to deepest despair, and for those in grief or great suffering this is completely typical. It is called being human. Don’t let others condemn you or make you doubt God either because of your humanity. He is gracious to us and remembers that we are but dust, a failing dirt clod with life breathed into it! (Psalm 103:8-14). Sadly, Job’s comforters, despite being human themselves, were far from humane in their treatment of Job’s suffering.
Job’s friends’ beliefs and accusations: Job’s buddies believed that his children all died because of either Job’s or their own unrighteousness or sin, and that righteous living will help Job to get back to the person he should be and experience God’s blessing again. Despite his protests that he knew of nothing that he had done wrong, they continued to accuse and accelerate their attacks on him. This is not the way to help someone in the midst of their difficulty and grief. Let them express their feelings. It isn’t the time to debate. Remind them of your love for them and for goodness sake don’t jump to conclusions that you know nothing about. Be there for them and don’t judge them. Leave your philosophizing at home and watch what you say. Remember in the end it was Job’s friends who needed prayer to avoid big troubles because of their treatment of him!
Glimpses of Hope and God
At the end of this long book of debate on human suffering, God stepped in and redirected both Job and his “comforters,” but guess what? God had been there all along! He never went anywhere. He was there when Satan asked permission to wipe Job out, and despite the great suffering allowed, God had His hand on the thermostat of Job’s life. God was there when He allowed the destruction of a man’s family and life. He was there when Job collapsed, yet not into utter despair, but in worship of the God who remained true and worthy despite the fall of all else in Job’s life. Be clear that you understand that God gets no pleasure from allowing His children to suffer (Lamentations 3:33), but He can gain glory and we can experience good as we endure these difficult things. Job began to gain glimpses of this in the midst of all that he had to face:
1. There is a need for a mediator between us and God, one who can lay his hand on us both and relate to what we have gone through (Job 9:32-35). God loved us so much that He provided us that Mediator, Jesus Christ, who has been through our human experience so He an come to our salvation and aid in the midst of our sorrows; He is a God who has drawn us near and is not far from understanding our weaknesses, our sorrows, our pain (see 1 Timothy 2:5; Hebrews 2:18; 4:15-16).
2. There is something beyond this human difficulty, and that is unexplainable hope. In one of the most famous passages of the Old Testament, in fact one I read some years ago at my grandmother’s funeral, is Job 19:25-27: “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and He shall stand at last on the earth; and after my skin is destroyed, this I know, that in my flesh I shall see God, Whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. How my heart yearns within me! (NKJV)” We have the great assurance that as His child we have a hope beyond this life and its sorrows. One day we will all be transformed from this rough glory to true Glory when we see Him as He is, and that is in itself a source of great hope (1 John 3:1-3). We must take on an eternal focus and not on these temporal although painful difficulties (2 Corinthians 4:16-18). As the author of Hebrews put it, “And so, dear brothers and sisters who belong to God and are partners with those called to heaven, think carefully about this Jesus whom we declare to be God's messenger and High Priest” (Hebrews 3:1, New Living Translation). This High Priest knows your sorrow and pain. Because of His help and through confidence in Him despite the rain pouring on your life, “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7, NKJV).
3. One final lesson Job learned that brings us past our sufferings and trials to renewed hope is in how God responded in the end of this long book and what it teaches us: God is still God, is still in control, and is still good and worthy of worship despite what our circumstances may tell us. Job 38:1 tells us that God answered Job out of the whirlwind, out of the very thing that had brought destruction and pain to his life. Some of the things that God reminded Job of were that He was creator of all and master of all creation, His careful care of all He created, His great power and sovereignty, and most of all His being beyond our full understanding and “figuring out.” Job had heard what he needed to hear to accept that this was God’s best, repented of all of his self-righteous thoughts and struggles in grief, and God, out of grace, restored him. We may not always have the complete restoration that Job did, receiving double of all he lost materially, but we will receive double the growth and peace and joy in the Lord that we had before affliction and other difficulties hit our lives. Remember that the refining process of anything valuable involves that the heat be turned way up, melting away the dross of our lives, and if God has allowed such trials to hit your life, you must be pretty valuable to Him.
[1] Billy Sprague, Letter to a Grieving Heart (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 2001), p. 5.
© 2008, Thomas Klock, Psalm 72:8 Communications Services, Cambria CA 93428. All Rights Reserved.
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