A PURPOSE IN SUFFERING

“So what you’re saying is, it may not be my fault.” The woman’s words took me by surprise. Having been a guest speaker at her church, we were now discussing what I’d shared that morning. “I have a chronic illness,” she explained, “and I have prayed, fasted, confessed my sins, and done everything else I was told to do to be healed. But I’m still sick, so I thought I was to blame.”

I felt sad at the woman’s confession. Having been given a spiritual “formula” to fix her problem, she had blamed herself when the formula hadn’t worked. Even worse, this formulaic approach to suffering was disproved generations ago.

Simply put, this old formula says that if you’re suffering, you must have sinned. When Job tragically lost his livestock, children, and health, his friends used the formula on him. “Who, being innocent, has ever perished?” Eliphaz said, suspecting Job’s guilt (Job 4:7). Bildad even told Job that his children only died because they had sinned (8:4). Ignorant of the real cause of Job’s calamities (1:6–2:10), they tormented him with simplistic reasons for his pain, later receiving God’s rebuke (42:7).

Suffering is a part of living in a fallen world. Like Job, it can happen for reasons we may never know. But God has a purpose for you that goes beyond the pain you endure. Don’t get discouraged by falling for simplistic formulas.

Read: Job 42:1-9 (NIV)

Job

42 1 Then Job replied to the Lord:

2 “I know that you can do all things;^d

no purpose of yours can be thwarted.^e

3 You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?’^f

Surely I spoke of things I did not understand,

things too wonderful for me to know.^g

4 “You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak;

I will question you,

and you shall answer me.’^h

5 My ears had heard of youⁱ

but now my eyes have seen you.^j

6 Therefore I despise myself^k

and repent^l in dust and ashes.”^m

Epilogue

7 After the Lord had said these things to Jobⁿ, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “I am angry with you and your two friends,^o because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has.^p 

8 So now take seven bulls and seven rams^q and go to my servant Job^r and sacrifice a burnt offering^s for yourselves. My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer^t and not deal with you according to your folly.^u You have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has.”^v 

9 So Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite^w did what the Lord told them; and the Lord accepted Job’s prayer.^x

INSIGHT

1. How else do you see the “suffering = sin” formula being used?
2. Why do you think it’s still so prevalent?

After encountering God face to face, Job finds his anger and questions fading, and even describes himself repenting “in dust and ashes” (Job 42:6). Yet God doesn’t rebuke Job for his questions and in fact suggests that in his grief and pain he was closer to the truth than his friends. In their quickness to defend what they saw as an attack on God, Job’s friends spoke arrogantly and without compassion. They preferred to blame Job for his pain than to have their ideas about God challenged—such as God always protecting the righteous from genuine tragedy. Ironically, in their hurry to defend Him, they “had not spoken the truth about [Him],” while Job had spoken honestly (v. 7). God’s approval of Job reveals that God doesn’t want us to suppress our pain, anger, and hard questions but deeply values genuine, honest relationship with Him.

PRAYER

Great Physician, give me words to heal, not hurt, in times of pain. In Jesus name, I pray and believe. Amen!!

Read: Job 42:1-9 (NIV)  | Bible in a Year: Jeremiah 12-14; 2 Timothy 1