"One of the surprises as we get older is that we come to see that there is no real correlation between the amount of wrong we commit and the amount of pain we experience.
Job does not curse God as his wife suggests he should do, getting rid of the problem by getting rid of God. But neither does Job explain suffering. Suffering is a mystery, and Job comes to respect the mystery.
In the course of facing, questioning and respecting suffering, Job finds himself in an even larger mystery---the mystery of God. Perhaps the greatest mystery in suffering is how it can bring a person into the presence of God in a state of worship, full of wonder, love and praise. Suffering does not inevitably do that, but it does it far more often that we would expect.
Sufferers attract fixers the way roadkill attract vultures.
Job rejects the kind of advise and teaching that has God all figured out, that provides glib explainations for every circumstance,
Faith is refined in the fires and storms of pain. We cannot have truth about God divorced from the mind and heart of God.
People do not suffer less when they are committed to following God, but more. When these people go through suffering, their lives are often transformed, deepened, marked with beauty and holiness, in remarkabale ways that could neaver have been anticipated before suffering.
Sometimes it's hard to know how to follow Job's lead when we feel so alone in our suffering, unsure of what God wants us to do. What we must realize during those times of darkness is that God who appeared to Job in the whirlwind is calling out to all of us.
We gain hope --not from the darkness of our suffering, not from pat answers in books, but from the God whos sees our suffering and shares our PAIN.
Reading Job prayerfully and meditatively leads us to face the questions that arise when our lives don't turn out the way we expect them to.
Everytime we persist with Job in rejecting the quick-fix counsel of people who see us and hear us, but do not
understand us, we deepen our availabiltiy and openness to the revelation that comes only out of the tempest. We realize that suffering calls our lives into question, not God's."
Intro to the Book of Job, The Message Bible
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