| WHAT JOB TEACHES ABOUT SUFFERING |
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| evidence of him can be found. One contemporary author expressed that truth this way, "Remember in the darkness what you have learned in the light." 8. Well-intentioned advice can sometimes do more harm than good. Job's friends were classic examples of people who let their pride and sense of being right interfere with their compassion. They repeated pious phrases and argued theology with Job. His response: "If only you would be altogether silent! For you, that wold be wisdom" (13:5). 9. God asks for faith. God refocused the central issue from the cause of Job's suffering to his response. Mysteriously, God never gave an explanation for the problem of suffering. He did not even inform Job of the reason behind it: the contest recorded in chapters 1 and 2. He concentrated instead on Job's response: The real issue at stake was Job's faith, whether he would continue to trust God even when everything went wrong. 10. Suffering can be used for a higher good. In Job's case, God used a time of very great pain to win an important, even cosmic, victory over Satan. Looking backward, but only looking backward, we can see the "advantage" Job gained by continuing to trust God. Job is often cited as an Old Testament picture of Jesus Christ, who lived a perfectly innocent life but endured great pain and death. The terrible event of Christ's death was also transformed into a great victory. Thousands of years later, Job's questions have not gone away. People who suffer still find themselves borrowing Job's own words as they cry out againt God's seeming lack of concern. But Job affirms that God is not deaf to our cries and is in control of this world no matter how it looks. God did not answer all Job's questions, but his very |