The book of Job

Dears in Christ,

The book of Job used to fascinate me in my adolescence, partly due to God’s answer in the end. The portrayal of His wisdom and our limits. But the book of Job has deeper insights to offer and can only be understood as a revelation from God as with all the other books of the Bible.

Earlier when I read the book of Job I used to think of Job as a kind of pawn or a gambit in a cosmic chess game. A gambit is a chess opening in which a player, more often White, sacrifices material, usually a pawn, with the hope of achieving a resulting advantageous position. This used to bother me. Are we all just pawns in His game? Later I realised that there was no game. But Job was the only card God had. God’s reputation was at stake in the hands of mere mortal. More of, “in the faith of mere mortal” Job was the only person left at that time that God could use to prove that man does not live by bread alone. But by faith in God. God’s model of relationship with humans was put to test, and only one outcome was expected. To quote a Russian writer, “But the greatness of it lies just in the fact that it is a mystery—that the passing earthly show and the eternal truth are brought together in it. In the face of the earthly truth, the eternal truth is accomplished. The Creator, just as on the first days of creation He ended each day with praise: “That is good that I have created,” looks upon Job and again praises His creation. And Job, praising the Lord, serves not only Him but all His creation for generations and generations, and forever and ever, since for that he was ordained.”

Why should a righteous suffer like an unrighteous? Does God not care anymore on what happens to His servants, who live for Him alone? A glimpse of the answer can be found in the book of Job. He cares for us, more than we would like to believe. His eyes are always on us. Yes, even on the kids on the cancer wards, on the refugees, and on the persecuted.

Someone might ask, “how am I sure of this?” I really do not know the cause of each and every unasked suffering a Christian faces, but the Bible is not silent on the topic of suffering.

1. Apostle Paul writes, “…we felt we have received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and He will deliver us again. On Him we have set our hope that He will continue to deliver us”. Apostle Paul believed he needed a lesson in reliance on God. This leads me to ponder on what’s my level of reliance on God.
2. It allows me to be put into the shoes of those who share the same suffering. Simone de Beauvoir, wrote of Simone Weil in her book Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter, both studied in the same university and are intellectuals in their own right. “She intrigued me because of her great reputation for intelligence and her bizarre get-up; “A great famine had broken out in China, and I was told that when she heard the news she had wept: these tears compelled my respect much more than her gifts as a philosopher. I envied her having a heart that could beat right across the world. I managed to get near her one day. I don’t know how the conversation got started; she declared in no uncertain tones that only one thing mattered in the world: the revolution which would feed all the starving people of the earth. I retorted, no less peremptorily, that the problem was not to make men happy, but to find the reason for their existence. She looked me up and down: ‘It’s easy to see you’ve never been hungry,’ she snapped.””

3. On a very personal level, God did not promise us that life on earth is going to be rosy. He is not an impostor to lead us to believe that there will be no suffering at all. His very life on earth was a testament to the fact. We have one verse to comfort us, “I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”

And yes! There is an end to every suffering. That is the Christian hope! The bible does not mince words when it comes to comforting God’s sons and daughters. He did care for the wines that ran out in a wedding. The first recorded miracle was not a dramatic show of His power by raising the dead or calming a violent sea. No, it was to refill the empty wine barrels! The God of small things and big things!

He makes your happiness and your joy His business as seriously as any father would. More than the earthly father I daresay.

May God bless us and guide us forever.

Bro Gideon Paul Rufus

God’s love missions family

**please write back to us so we can share your joy in testifying the Lord for His mercy**