One of my favorite things to do with our kids is help them overcome any innate fear of heights (acrophobia) by playfully launching them into the air.
Owen, our almost three-year-old, has been the funniest to do this with. The minute he is separated from my hands he does two things: hold his breath and then immediately stare at my two hands. For he trusts those two hands will catch him, and they always have.
What we see in Job 8-10 is that Job feels as though God has thrown him up into the air of suffering and as he hangs suspended the question is whether or not Job will trust in God’s sovereign hands to catch him and comfort him. Just like Owen stares at my two hands, I see Job staring at God tonight and wavering on two things. And oh how helpful Job continues to be for us! His questions amidst suffering still ring true for many of us. So as we begin to close I want to ask two final questions, pondering God’s two hands as it were, that are vital for whether or not you will trust God during suffering you don’t understand.
WHEN YOU SUFFER . . .
1) Will you trust God’s justice?
2) Will you trust God’s goodness?
In chapters 9-10 Job wonders aloud about the reality of God’s justice and goodness, and are not those two issues always at the forefront of our trust in God during suffering? If we believe God is just and God is good, even in unexplainable suffering, we will be able to trust Him and praise Him. If we don’t, we lessen His glory. Are you suffering? What do you think about God’s justice and goodness over, under, and in your pain? What a witness to the world it is when Christians and churches trust God in unexplainable suffering? Job’s journey will soon reveal that he indeed trusts in these perfections of God.
We need only look to the cross of Christ to see how mysteriously these perfections relate. There at Calvary Jesus experienced the fullness of God; wrath and mercy, justice and goodness, collided and the world has never been the same. God was just and good in Christ’s suffering, so dear Christian you can rest assured He is just and good in yours.
A friend once asked me, after watching me play this “Launch the Stone Boy Into the Air” game, “What happens if you drop them?” I looked at him and said, “These hands will never drop my boy.” But, if I’m honest, it’s possible. Something could go wrong and they boy slips through. Yet, we can be encouraged from Psalm 55:22, “Cast your cares on him . . . for he will never let [his children] fall.” Will you trust God if your suffering is unexplainable?
This post is adapted from my recent sermon on Job 8-10, “Suffering with Bildad.”