Job 1:22; 42: 5; 10-11
Biosphere and Biosphere 2 was an experiment conducted in 1990’s to prove that man could manipulate God’s environment and yet survive. Biosphere was great in theory but a disaster in practice. It was long on imagination but came up short on implementation. Eight humans were supposed to survive two years in the Biosphere. It was nearly a total replication of the earth’s ecosystem. It had rainforests, an ocean, coral reefs, wetlands, an agricultural system, and a human habitat. It had everything…well almost everything.
With all this high-level science they couldn’t figure out why biosphere didn’t work. The trees that were supposed to provide food for them couldn’t bear fruit. It would begin to grow but cast off before time. They finally figured it out. Though the biosphere had everything that the earth’s ecosystem had, it was missing one thing…storms!
You see, nothing grows to complete maturity in this life without going through some storms.
The story of Job is a classic look at a God who is redemptive amid undeserved suffering.
With the nation in flux and the world in chaos, it should come as no surprise that people are going through it on a very personal level and it begs the question “Is God still relevant in a world where pain is so prevalent?” The answer must be a resounding YES!!!
There are 3 probing, penetrating questions I want to wrestle with:
1. Is God Responsible?
Satan Allowed to Test Job
God does not take Satan’s bait to do harm to Job but rather gives Satan limited permission to interfere in Job’s affairs. Make no mistake about it, God is both powerful and loving. Job’s circumstances are no reflection on the nature and capacity of God. Neither are our desperate moments a smudge on the record of our God.
Now to say that God is responsible is tricky… God is the Sovereign of all there is, all there was, and all there ever will be. Nothing happens without His complete and utter foreknowledge. But is He responsible? I believe the text answers that for us, at least in the case of Job. It was God who granted permission, but it was Satan who gave out the persecution. God is the Giver of every good and perfect gift.
I wouldn’t say God is responsible for the things that go wrong, but I will say that when we are in trouble He is reliable!
2. Is God Reliable? 42:5
I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you;
Based on Job’s personal encounter that had been chronicled throughout the book of Job, he comes to some conclusions about who God is… For Job, he had come to know God in the most intimate way one can ever know another and that is through personal experiences. Had he never had such experiences with God, he would have never known on any significant level who God is and just how faithful God has been even in the most difficult seasons of life.
If we never had a problem, how would we know He would solve them. How would we know what faith in God could do?
We hate suffering because we equate it to punishment. The psalmist helps our understanding when he declares in Psalm 34:15-19 “The eyes of the LORD are upon the righteous, and his ears are open unto their cry. The face of the LORD is against them that do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth. The righteous cry and the LORD hear, and deliver them out of all their troubles. The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saves such as be of a contrite spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the LORD delivers him out of them all.” Therefore, all suffering is not for the sake of punishment. Job’s friends didn’t understand the ways of the Lord.
We do suffer consequences as a result of our sins but even in that God is reshaping us, redirecting us, and remaking us. The Bible shares with us that we will suffer even as believers. 1 Peter 3:17 “It is better, if it is God’s will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.” 1 Peter 4:19 “So then, those who suffer according to God’s will, should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good. Suffering is inevitable but we who profess Christ should endeavor to suffer for good and not as a result of the sin we commit. There is something honorable and redemptive about undeserved suffering. People who loose life and limb for a noble cause are martyrs whereas those who died in the commission of sinful acts are shameful.
We surmise that our suffering is not only for a reason but also for a season. I find hope in the knowledge that the suffering that God allows is for a season and it will end when its season is up. Whatever we go through will not last always. Consider Psalms 34:19 when
the psalmist says that “the Lord delivers them from them all” he is saying by extension that the Lord will snatch them away. So, what the psalmist is really saying is that God is so merciful that He will not suffer us to endure one second more than we should in this lifetime. He will get us out even if He must take us home to glory to do it. We don’t like that part, but the truth is that since we are bought with the price of the blood of Jesus the redeemer can come back whenever He wants to claim us. That’s how we deal with the death of our loved ones, we remember that they belong to the Lord.
3. Will God Restore? 42:10-11
The end of the book of Job seems to paint the portrait of restoration. For one to lose and be restored at the hand of God is redemption. It is the picture of God turning things around. It is the righting of the wronged. It is God remaining faithful to His word. Through all of this it teaches us to be faithful to God in every circumstance. It is an act of great faith when you can trust God in the worse seasons of your life.
God has a way of making the broken things better. He can make the weak strong again. He can make the fallen and model of restoration. He can take that which was broken, abandoned, left for dead, and give new life! And if your life has at times been a series of disappointments, a cadre of calamity, and a bevy of bad breaks…let me remind you that even a scratched record can still make music!
What I’m trying to tell you is that God has a way of redeeming what others have given up on, walked away from, and pronounced final judgment over.
Where are you right now? What is it that is choking the life out of you? What happened that caused you to lose your song? Whatever it is, God can restore it.