Why do we suffer? Part 2 Posted by Bubbly89 , Tuesday, January 18, 2011 at 2:04 PM, in

I, myself, have suffered a lot of loss and failure in just a year. And I, myself, have asked questions like why this kind of things happened to me. Then, one day, a friend told me, when we suffer, we can continue to blame God for what happened to us and continue to be miserable OR there's the happier way, we just pray and trust in Him that He knows what He's doing and He has bigger and better plans for us and go on with our lives.

Job 20-24, 38-41
Why are Jobs frinds so insistent that sin and suffering are connected? Why do they go on, chapter after chapter, telling Job that his suffering is a punishment for his sins? The author of the Book of Job uses the debate of Job and his friends to contrast two positions. The position of Job's friends is that God rewards people who are good and punishes those who are wicked: if Job is suffering terribly, the Job must have sinned terribly. Job's repeated denial of sin reveals the second position, which is that sometimes innocent people suffer. This second position is hard to argue because it leaves a huge question: Why?
Because Job has too much integrity to repent for sins he never committed, he keeps searching for another answer. Finally, Job makes an oath of innocence. Such and oath has God as its witness, and if it is false, it requires God to strike down the person who made it. But God appears to Job in an awesome show of power and reminds Job that human intelligence is too limited to comprehend the deeper mysterires of creation. God alone know why innocent people suffer; Job must trust God's plan.

Job 38.1-42.6
So, that's it? God just shows up, overwhelms Job with a bunch of questions he can't answer, and then gives Gob back double everything he lost? God doesn't even answer Job's question about why he had to suffer!
And what about our questions? Why do innocent children die? Why is someone we love taken from us? Why do people die from hungerin a world that has so much? Why did that plane crash? Why did our friend die?
Why Job was satisfied with God's response? Perhaps Job's mind and his heart struggled with God's answer, and his heart won. Maybe his heart told him to trust in God's love evenb when his mind couldn't understand the mystery of his suffering.
With Job, the Israelite people began to see the suffering of innocent people as mystery and not punishment. In the New Testament, this suffering would continue to be seen as mystery but also something more. The death of Jesus - the ultimate innocent suffering person - and his Resurrection led to the understand that God ultimately brings good our of the suffering of faithful people.


The above comments are not made by me but those were found in my study bible. So, no copyright intended.