"My foot has held fast to His steps; I have kept His way and have not turned aside."
Job 23:11 ESV
The book of Job is one of my favorite books of the Bible. And I have heard it said that Job may very well be the oldest of all them. Whether that is the case or not, there is one thing that Job addresses very well through its 42 chapters, this question: Why does God allow suffering?
This isn't an easy issue to write about but it is a necessary one. This question dives deep into the old question that asks if God loves us then why do we suffer? Or to say it another way, if God really cared for me He wouldn't let me suffer like this?
Every one of us will suffer from something during our life. Some may suffer from health-related issues which can not be helped, while some suffer from the poor choices they make and the consequences that come along with them. Every single one of us will ask this question at some point in their life. It is inevitable. The conclusion above is absolutely and entirely false. God loves every single person that has lived or died or will live. The proof that God loves us is in the work done on the cross and the sacrifice that is Jesus Christ. He took on our shame and sin to suffer the punishment and wrath that God felt towards humanity. In other words, without the cross, we would suffer more than we could imagine.
What is the answer to the question I asked above: Why does God allow us to suffer? The key to understanding this is to study and understand the character of God. And that is exactly what Job knew in his heart to be true. He knew that God was just and that everything God had given him was God's all along and that it never truly belonged to him. Whether that was his money, his land, his servants, his children, his wife, or anything else in Job's life, ultimately it all belonged to God. This knowledge gave Job a logical answer to that question. He knew through all this that God could be and should be trusted.
Sometimes we just have to understand and depend on the knowledge that God is God and we aren't. As a wise pastor once told me during a time of extreme trial and grief, "You see your life through a keyhole in the door and God sees it through the biggest of bay windows. God's view is panoramic and ours is laser-focused." Depend on the knowledge that God has all the answers and that sometimes just has to be good enough.
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