Pray:
Lord, help me to know Your heart is always for my good and that I can trust You even when I do not understand.
Read:
Job 1:1-22
Reflect:
Do you have peace knowing God allows suffering?
From my perspective, this passage raises more questions than answers about why suffering exists! But Job's attitude to God in the middle of suffering challenges and instructs me. First, despite his suffering, he both recognizes God's absolute prerogative to do as he pleases and never doubts that God only ever acts rightly (22).
Second, Job is described twice as "blameless and upright," a man who "fears God and shuns evil" (1,8), with a life of regular praise and worship (5). That doesn't appear to change. His response to the suffering, which strips away all the supports to his identity and purpose and removes all earthly sources of his joy, is to continue to worship God (20).
Thousands of years later, V.R. Edman, fourth president of Wheaton College, was able to say, "Never doubt in the dark what God told you in the light." That's not bad advice (though admittedly hard to follow!) for all of us when we encounter suffering. Hang on to what we know of God's character, and continue, like Job, to praise him.
Apply:
Ask God to help you trust him, especially when you don't understand what's happening to you or he seems distant.
Pray:
Faithful God, You are never far off. You are a God who has suffered what we never will and who is near in our suffering.
