Lessons from Job's Life: On Suffering

"Through all this Job did not sin nor did he blame God"

(Job 1:22)

 

If I were to ask you this question, "How do you respond to the trials in your life?" What would your answer be? Does such suffering make you bitter or better? If someone real close to you dies tomorrow, or if you lose your job, or you lose all your earthly possessions in a fire. Would you be still able to say with Job: "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I shall return there, the LORD gave and the LORD has taken away, blessed be the name of the LORD" (Job 1:21).

 

The Book of Job is the oldest book in the Bible, which means Job had far less Scripture to live by than we Christians do today. Yet, when suffering came into Job's life he valiantly responded to it in a godly way. So if Job was able to do that with very little of God's Word to go by, then we are without excuse today. Since we as Christians have the whole revelation of God's Word in our possession, then we should know better than to "blame God" during times of difficulties in life. This truth really hits home to my heart, perhaps more so than anybody.

 

Unlike non-Christians who do not know Christ, we as believers should be confident in our God during difficult circumstances in life. Trials should not so easily move or distress us as it does the ungody who do not know God. Consider Paul's words to the Church at Corinth, "For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory" (2 Cor. 4: 17).  You see what Paul is getting at here, he was reminding the Corinthian saints that their present hardships is but for a brief moment in time compared to the eternity they will spend in heaven. The problem with most Christians is that our affections are too much tied to this present world, when our affections should be focused on heaven (see Col. 3: 1-2). (To be Continued)