Was Job A Patient Sufferer?

Tragedy strikes at each and every corner of our lives, yet not all tragedies are intended by the media as Job stories. For example, the eastern Arkansas woman who lost her entire family before Christmas in an automobile accident openly questions God, as her faith has been lost in Him to protect her family. In comparison to some of us, Job is only moderately radical when he only questions God, whereas our culture has no limits to degrading our Lord and Savior. The average person who suffers is not as patient as we would like to believe because we take for granted the basic necessities of life.

            Like so many of us, Job basically has it made; he owns thousands of cattle, employs hundreds of men to tend them, has a beautiful wife and family as well as several concubines at his will. Therefore, he has no reason to question his faith in God – yet. Likewise, we think life is all right and enter a mentality of “this is how things are supposed to go” until something negative happens because I know that has happened to me. Nine months ago, I was on top of the world with a new car, an off-campus apartment, plenty of money in my checking and savings accounts, my Wal-Mart stock increasing daily, no worries regarding food or credit card debt, and classes were going to be a breeze. To make a long story short, I moved two months after I got the first apartment as a result of my then-roommate not paying any bills and stealing clothes – after I put myself into over a thousand dollars’ debt with Visa which is now paid in full, and my GPA has gone south. Fortunately, I did not curse God; instead I believed that He intended for me to lose it all as a test of my faith in Him.

Similar to my experience, Job is eventually tested to find out whether his faith lies in God or in his possessions. One day Satan proposes a deal with God that if Job lost everything, he would curse God and the very day he was born through a series of tests: First, he would lose his children when their home fell upon them during their dinner. Second, all of his cattle would be killed meaning he would no longer be wealthy; the third challenge is giving praise when his body is covered with sores. His wife even urges Job to “curse God and die” (The Book of Job 412); and finally, his three friends ignorantly tell him that he has committed an awful sin. Initially, he takes the pain and tragedy well, but as his health worsens and his friends criticize him, saying he committed a horrible sin to deserve this condition, Job finally gives in and curses the day he was born! To wish one had never been born signifies that life is not worth living and often shows a total disregard of a higher being.

            Our confusion is similar:  once trials arise, our faith in God is out the door, sprinting almost as fast as a track athlete, causing confidence to drop enough to question God. Denying our pain allows us to delay the pain period indefinitely; no one dares to admit their suffering and it extends the pain.. This is similar to a son coming to a parent with a hurt finger and saying: “It doesn’t hurt. Think of something else and it will go away” (Baker 33). What is the child supposed to do, walk it off every time he slams his finger in the car door? It results in a mixed message from receiver (the child) to sender (the parent). Many of our messages from God go unheard in the same manner since we hardly bother to “listen” instead of letting it go from one ear and out the other and “seeing the writing on the wall”.

            In a scientific society in which everything has a reason, Job’s submission has failed to satisfy us because it accepts mystery (Birrer 1). Perhaps it is better for us to simply know His omnipresence and to be in it. According to Roland Murphy, author of the Proclamation Chronicles, our attempt to understand or approach the idea of God’s presence in scientific or human concepts constricts divinity, making it impossible to understand why things happen, good or bad. Failing to understand that faith cannot be interpreted in scientific terms, we so often miss our blessings and are restricted by our oppression.

            Sometimes it takes a personal tragedy such as the death of a family member or a close friend to test our ability not to curse God for it and not to stray from His teachings. Harold Kushner, author of When Bad Things Happen To Good People and a Boston rabbi, summarizes his son Aaron’s short life: he stopped gaining weight at ten months; aged considerably before reaching five years old; and died two days after his fourteenth birthday; and how Harold Kushner compared himself to Job. Young Aaron Kushner was afflicted with a rare disease called progenia, resulting in his father beginning to have doubts about his God, whom he had always viewed as an “all-wise, all-powerful” parent figure who praised us for good and reluctantly punished for evil (Kushner 453)! Did God present a task for his faith while he watch Aaron die patiently knowing the result of his illness is death? Cassandra Winslow, the Brinkley, Arkansas woman who lost her entire family in December when she swerved her car to avoid a dog and subsequently plunged into a creek, felt for a time that “if God was real, then He would have let my family live”(Winslow 2). Obviously, she was so distraught she openly questioned God; the only difference between her tragedy and our unpublished trials is the local newspapers and television stations published and broadcasted her story. Recently, Ms. Winslow sent her thanks to all of those who prayed for her in her “time of bereavement” and concludes that God “works in mysterious ways sometimes. I may never know the reason why He took my family from me.”

            During his trials, Job always seems to remain pious despite having every reason in the world to go and abandon God. Fortunately, he does not; otherwise the Bible would not have a chapter devoted to such an upstanding man. When he eventually questions God as to why, he makes the mistake of “talking to God on a man-to-man level”. After God demonstrates why He is God and Job is merely a man, Job feels less than dirt and in turn passes his test with flying colors.

Job rises from the ashes and is eventually blessed with more than he had before as a result of remaining faithful to God during his time of affliction. From enduring through losing everything to having his own friends turn against him saying he sinned, Job is renewed by his repentance, and enriched and strengthened by God’s self-revelation to him. “Not only does Job realize God is sovereign, but also he intimately knew the God who is sovereign. In that knowledge and that relationship is the resolution of life’s problems” (Zuck 456).

            The sufferer is everywhere, regardless of how he I is portrayed in our newspapers, on television, via Internet and on morning radio. However, not all of those images are intended as “Job stories.” “When you were down at your lowest and you seemed alone, it was I who carried you”(Footprints). Job shows we all have to endure for a short while during life to reap the benefits such as good health, prospering, and of course, the gift of life. Bad things do happen to good people; it is a matter of how we adjust and battle through.

Works Cited

Kushner, Harold. “When Bad Things Happen To Good People.”  Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum. Ed. Laurence Behrens and Leonard J. Rosen. New York: Longman, 2000.452-63.

Baker, Wesley C. More Than A Man Can Take. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1952.

Zuck, Roy B. Sitting With Job. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1992.

Birrer, Jessamyn. Trusting Job in a Cynical World: The Problem of Understanding the Message of The Book of Job. http://www.angelfire.com/wa/TiltingWhirlwinds/VoicingWhirlwinds.html

 Terry, Rev. Llewellyn E. Announcement from Mt. Olive Baptist, Arkadelphia, AR. 19 March 2000.