Pre-Sunrise Thoughts

I woke up this morning feeling jittery and unable to sleep. Perhaps it’s from all of the excitement of looking at wedding venues yesterday. Whatever the reason, here I am, awake at 5:30 on a Sunday morning. I kept trying to go back to sleep, but thoughts of wedding details and future hopes kept coming to mind. While it’s not an entirely bad thing, I didn’t like it. I wanted my thoughts to be anchored on something more certain. Not just hopes or dreams. I decided to listen to a sermon on Job, a book of the Bible that I’m reading through. It’s not that I don’t understand the basic theme of Job –I know it’s about suffering. But I wanted a greater understanding of this divinely inspired, 42 chapter book, that God has given us.

“In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he

feared God and shunned evil. 2 He had seven sons and three daughters, 3 and he owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred donkeys, and had a large number of servants. He was the greatest man among all the people of the East.”

This seemingly “fairy tale” introduction is a stark contrast with what happens in just a few chapters.

“So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and afflicted Job with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. 8 Then Job took a piece of broken pottery and scraped himself with it as he sat among the ashes.9 His wife said to him, “Are you still maintaining your integrity? Curse God and die!”

The question “why” rings through the minds of most people who read these chapters.

            Why would God allow this?

            Why curse an upright man?

            Why give Satan the go-ahead to afflict him?

            Why take everything he has?

            Why kill his entire family?     

            Why, if God is good, does he allow suffering?

I think these are normal inquiries from people who just don’t see the whole picture. Our minds can’t comprehend the purposes of God, we are well aware of this. While the reading of the 42 chapters of Job won’t satisfy our “whys”, it will do something even greater –give us a deeper faith to accept the unanswered whys and trust that the answer God has, though unspoken, is sufficient.