Job - A Story of Unlikely Joyናሙና

In the last half of the prologue in Job (Job 2:1-8), we find God, the Creator of the universe, and Satan, the cruel adversary and accuser of humanity, having a second confrontational conversation. The prideful lizard grudgingly acknowledges that Job hasn’t yet lost his integrity despite losing his wealth and children. But as we read further, we can almost hear the manipulative whine in Satan's tone when he argues that if God would only allow him to afflict Job’s flesh and bones, which was previously not permitted (Job 1:12), Job’s integrity would disappear faster than a mouse at a cat convention! Read today’s Scripture again.

For me, the most difficult concept in Job 2, if not the entire book, is the fact that God allows Satan to further afflict Job. Good night, the poor fellow has already presided over the funerals of all ten of his children and most of his team of employees, plus he’s faced foreclosure on his estate. It’s almost impossible to imagine the depth of his grief in light of those huge, horrific losses. Now that pain is compounded by adding terribly painful, infected, head-to-toe, open sores to his inventory of agony. God’s sovereignty over absolutely everything in the world, including allowing the devil to devastate Job beyond what seems humanly bearable, begs the age-old question: If God is truly good, why does He allow such bad things to happen to us? I mean, how in the world could a compassionate Creator hand one of His beloved created beings over to that wicked dragon—the very same snake the apostle John said comes only to steal from us, kill us, and destroy us (John 10:10)? I don’t begin to have the wisdom to conclusively answer the question of why God allows suffering. However, over the years, I have constructed an internal theological framework by which to consider God’s allowance of suffering so that I don’t lose my hope in the ditch of despair, sully my soul in the mud of moralism, trade my peace for the anguish of over-analysis, or harden my heart in the cement of cynicism.

Here’s the deal: Despite how incredibly harsh pain appears from our perspectives, God only gives Satan enough rope to hang himself. It’s never enough to drag us away from God's presence.