Enduring With Job: 7 Days Of Hopeনমুনা

Job has passed the first test. He proved God right, that his heart was indeed pure and that he loved God for the right reasons – not just for the many blessings he had. However, Satan is not satisfied with this outcome.

In a second meeting between God and Satan, the tempter asks God to go one step further. This time he wants Job to feel another kind of pain: sickness. Whereas the first round of difficulties all happened outside of Job, this round will literally be on him.

God agrees and in the next scene we see Job stricken with painful sores all over his body. This would have made every movement extremely painful; even sleeping would have hurt. He would have become an outcast to the community because the sight of him would have terrified people. Job even resorted to using shards of broken pots to scratch away the constant pain.

At this point Job’s wife enters, pleading with her husband to end his pain. In her mind, his only option now is death. But even at his lowest point, Job did not sin.

A few years back I experienced some of the worse physical pain I had ever felt. Unknowingly, I had developed stomach ulcers and during the night one of them ruptured. I woke up with blood in my mouth and the worst pain I had ever felt shooting from my side. I spent the next four hours throwing up and the following three days recovering in the hospital.

Physical pain has a way of pushing us past our limits faster than any other type of suffering. God allowed Job’s pain to reach this level. He allowed one of the worst things humans can go through to happen to one of His most beloved servants.

There is a powerful truth here: God sends both good and trouble. But where is the comfort in that? 

I believe the book of Job is meant to make us uncomfortable. The God of the Bible is beyond us in many ways: in glory and power and wisdom. But He is also beyond us in frightening ways as well. He’s not like us. He doesn’t have to play by any rules because He is the author of them all. And He does not answer to anyone. 

Do not settle for a safe notion of God. He is terrifying, but He is good.

Takeaway: A safe view of God is a small view of God.

Prayer: Almighty God, I am nothing before you. But I can know You because You have made a way. Help me know You more, even the parts that scare me.