When Job first lost everything he owned in life, he held up pretty well: “The Lord has given and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” But then when his suffering dragged on, and his wife and friends weren’t any help, he started to unravel.
It’s one thing to go through a sudden tragedy. It’s another to wade through pain and suffering for weeks, months, and years. Like when the medical condition just won’t go away. When the stress-filled job just doesn’t get any better. When the longed-for mate just never appears. Then it starts to grind on you. And, like Job, there are three things we want.
1. We want to vent.
We want to let our feelings fly, and we feel like suffering gives a right to do that. As Job sat in the ashes of the city dump, scraping pus-filled sores off his body with a broken salad plate, he couldn’t keep his frustration contained any longer: “Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. And Job said: ‘Let the day perish on which I was born, and the night that said, ‘A man is conceived.’” (Job 3:1-3).
He had already committed not to curse God, but he wanted to curse something, so he looked around and decided to curse the day he was born. He was venting, but he still maintained a worshipful attitude through it all.
John Piper has said, “It is never, ever, ever, right to be angry with God. … But if you are angry with God, it is never right not to tell him so.” Being angry at God means that you disagree with the way he’s ordered the world and ordered your life. Being angry with God means that you’re telling him you could do a better job running the world than he does. That’s a sin! But if you already feel that way, then it would be another sin not to confess that to God and tell him about it.
That’s basically what Job did, but through it all, he maintained a worshipful attitude. He refused to curse God. When you’re suffering, vent with a worshipful heart. Confess to God how you feel, and let him change you.
2. We want to get answers.
When Job’s suffering was prolonged, he can’t stop himself from asking the why questions our hearts always turn toward: “Why did I not die at birth? … why was I not as a hidden stillborn child? Why is light given to him who is in misery?” And he didn’t get any answers from God. Nothing! In all forty-two chapters of the book!
When C.S. Lewis lost his wife, he said, “Go to God when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence. You may as well turn away. The longer you wait, the more emphatic the silence will become.”
The lesson of the book of Job is that God is more interested in being loved, and trusted, and worshiped, and glorified than he is in giving explanations. Know why? Because if we had all the answers, we wouldn’t need God! Answers can be a way for us to avoid depending on God. That’s why I think there’s a chance we might never get answers to some of our questions, not even in heaven!
Because “my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8).
When you’re suffering, look for God more than answers. He is the answer!
3. We want to find rest.
You can just hear the weariness in Job’s voice as the losses pile up. “If only I had died at birth! … I would have lain down and been quiet; I would have slept; then I would have been at rest. … But I am not at ease, nor am I quiet; I have no rest, but trouble comes.”
Have you ever been through a rough time in life when you tried to pray, and the only words you could squeak out were, “I’m just so tired, Lord.” I’ve been there! I’ve been through such agonizing seasons that all I knew how to pray for was rest.
Job thought the only way to find rest was to die. But what did Jesus say? “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” When we’re laboring through stress, conflict, or disease … when we’re heavy laden with loss, troubles, or tragedy … Jesus says, “Come to me! And I will give you rest!”
What kind of rest does Jesus give? Not a week on a lounge chair by a pool in Fiji. His rest that is so much deeper and long-lasting.
- Jesus gives us love and and acceptance. He died on the cross to make us acceptable to the Father. There’s nothing we can do to make him love us more, or accept us less.
- Jesus gives us his identity. He rose from the dead to make us new creations. We don’t have to keep working to comfort ourselves, or pull ourselves up, or prove ourselves.
- Jesus gives us his power. He ascended into heaven so he could send us the Holy Spirit, the counselor. When life is confusing and troubling, we have a counselor living inside of us. And through the Holy Spirit…
- Jesus gives us his character. He said, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” We’ll be able to go through suffering like he went through suffering.
Job never got this kind of offer, but we did. How could we pass it up?