Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him. Even so, I will defend my own ways before Him. He also shall be my salvation . For a hypocrite could not come before Him. Job 13:15-16

I have been reading about Job this week. I have a hard time understanding Job. It seems unfair what happened to Job. Here the man is living his life right, making daily sacrifices to God; and BAM he loses all his possessions, goes through sickness and pain, and then is rejected by everyone left that he cares about. As Job finds out, after questioning God, that God is far more bigger and complex than he can comprehend. God asks Job "Were you here when I laid the foundations of the earth?. . . or told the sea "this is how far you may come, but no farther and here your proud waves must stop" or Can you send out lightings?" Job ends up telling God "Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know."

There is many, many lessons contained within the book of Job. In our suffering we go through the same stages of Job. At first, we mourn, we praise God anyway, then we wish we were never born. Then after a long period of suffering, we begin to question God. Job didn’t question God until after he had been in his suffering for a period of time, until his friends came to him and gave him wrong advise. How many of us are strong at first, and as time goes by we start to weaken in our faith.

Although, I can’t answer why Job went through everything that he went through, I do know that at the end Job came to a greater understanding and appreciation for who God is, he learned to get outside of himself and pray for others in the midst of his own pain. And God gave him twice as much as he ever had before.

There is often purpose in our pain. God is such an awesome God that even when we suffer for things that aren’t a part of His will, he still "works all things to our good" when we are his children. The Apostle Peter tells us in I Peter 3 that if it is the will of God, it is better to suffer for good than for evil. And he tells us "because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example. . .when he suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously"

No matter what you are going through, commit it all to God and continue in your faith in God, in your praise to God and in your prayers for others – And God WILL bring you out and bring you out with blessings!

Suggested reading: Job 1-3, Job 38-42 and I Peter 3:13 - 4:19

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