The Plight of Job

“But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?”In all this Job did not sin with his lips.” Job 2:10

I often times fear how I would respond to God if my circumstances were different. When reading the book of Job it is easy to caricature the different people in the story and turn it into a one of those flannel Sunday school lessons of lifeless cut outs. We can look at Job's wife as simply a nagging wife, we can look at his friends as cold, legalistic idiots with no sympathy, we can see Job as an unrealistic superhero of faith, and we can see God as a cruel unjust deity who hands over the fate of this man to a cunning devil. But to see the book like this completely ignores the complex human emotions of worship and suffereing, the deep theological significance of God's sovereignty, and the philosophical exploration of evil and injustice. Within the first two chapters of the book, Job loses his children, his land, his wealth, and his health and is faced with the crucial question of whether or not he will still treat God as sovereign over his life. I fear how I would respond to the same trial. It is easy for me to write off his wife as a faithless fool, or his friends as hard-headed simpletons, but if I were to really put myself in the shoes of any one of them, I don't know if I would act any differently. And that is why the drama of Job is so important to life. Are we willing to accept God's sovereignty and goodness over both the good things that happen to us and the bad? The plight of Job is really the plight of all of us and the point of his story is not to teach us to suffer well, but teach us to keep God sovereign.

Lord Jesus, help us to hold your lordship in all circumstances and worship you for both the good and the bad!