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“Then they sat down with him on the ground for
seven days and seven nights, yet no one spoke a word
to him, for they saw that his pain was very great.”
Job 2:13 (NASB)
Job sought to discover why nearly everything that
he valued was suddenly gone. He was left with his life,
his integrity, and his wife; and even she was telling him to
“Curse God and die!”
There are many reports of people wishing they never
been born. But, what’s interesting here is, Job was wishing
he had died during delivery.
“Why did I not die at birth, and why did I not expire
as I came out of the womb?”
Job 3:11 (NET)
He was unaware of the conversation that took place
between Satan and God that led up to his suffering. So, Job
couldn’t comprehend why he was suffering, but he never
gave up on God.
In the Old Testament, there was always a collation
between sin and suffering. The thought behind this was,
if you sin… you suffer. They believed if they obeyed Him
they would be blessed; if they disobeyed Him they would be
cursed. It was that simple.
Job was living proof that we don’t always deserve what
we get. Just because someone was stricken by the coronavirus
doesn’t necessarily mean they are being judged by the Lord.
Sickness and suffering aren’t always the result of
punishment for one’s transgressions. From what we see in
the book of Job, bad things can very definitely happen to
good people.
Humans often want easy answers to tough questions. But
these answers may be more about making us feel better than
actually helping us understand the world in which we live.