Job can be a challenging book to read. It forces us to grapple with our position in creation and the question of why good people suffer. Here’s what happens.

Job was an important and wealthy man with a large family. He was also a faithful servant of God. One day Satan appears before God. God boasts about Job as a good and upright man, but Satan says that Job is only faithful because God has blessed him. Satan argues that if God took away the position, money, and family, Job would curse God. God then allows Satan to test Job.

In a single day, Job receives a series of four messages telling him that his livestock (source of wealth), servants, and 10 children have all died in various ways. Job’s heart is crushed. He tears his clothes and shaves his head. However, Job does not curse God, he blesses Him. Then Satan causes painful sores to appear all over Job’s body. Job still refuses to curse God…even when his wife tells him to.

Friends?
Hearing about what had happened to Job, four of his friends come over and sit with him for seven days to mourn with him. The next 36 chapters are filled with complaints from Job and advice from his friends. The responses from his friends aren’t very helpful. One basically says that when others suffered Job tried to comfort them, but now that he actually has to suffer, he can’t take it?

Next, his friends figure that Job must have sinned against God and God is punishing him. So, they tell him to repent and seek God. Their solution is good…if Job had a sin to confess, but he didn’t. They go on to say his children brought on their own deaths by their actions.  Job responds to his friends with indignation and calls them liars, which offends them.

Questioning God:
Through this book, Job asks some deep questions about man and God and God’s judgments.  You may have gone through some suffering or known others who have which made you question God. At one point Job asks why God would allow some evil people to prosper while good people suffer. It’s a difficult question and one which we cannot fully answer. We aren’t God and if God doesn’t explain Himself, we just don’t know.

When Job finally complains to God about everything he was going through (though still doesn’t curse Him), God responds with what is essentially a “Who are You to question me?” response. God reminds Job that God is God, the mighty creator and sustainer of all things while Job is not. God knows all and has all wisdom. God’s justice and righteousness are perfect. Job is one of God’s creations, one who is corrupted by sin.

Job’s response to God is short and simple.